A biological foundation for spatial–numerical associations
- "Left" and "right" coordinates control our spatial behavior and even influence abstract thoughts. For number concepts, horizontal spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) have been widely documented: we associate few with left and many with right. Importantly, increments are universally coded on the right side even in preverbal humans and nonhuman animals, thus questioning the fundamental role of directional cultural habits, such as reading or finger counting. Here, we propose a biological, nonnumerical mechanism for the origin of SNAs on the basis of asymmetric tuning of animal brains for different spatial frequencies (SFs). The resulting selective visual processing predicts both universal SNAs and their context-dependence. We support our proposal by analyzing the stimuli used to document SNAs in newborns for their SF content. As predicted, the SFs contained in visual patterns with few versus many elements preferentially engage right versus left brain hemispheres, respectively, thus predicting left-versus rightward behavioral biases."Left" and "right" coordinates control our spatial behavior and even influence abstract thoughts. For number concepts, horizontal spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) have been widely documented: we associate few with left and many with right. Importantly, increments are universally coded on the right side even in preverbal humans and nonhuman animals, thus questioning the fundamental role of directional cultural habits, such as reading or finger counting. Here, we propose a biological, nonnumerical mechanism for the origin of SNAs on the basis of asymmetric tuning of animal brains for different spatial frequencies (SFs). The resulting selective visual processing predicts both universal SNAs and their context-dependence. We support our proposal by analyzing the stimuli used to document SNAs in newborns for their SF content. As predicted, the SFs contained in visual patterns with few versus many elements preferentially engage right versus left brain hemispheres, respectively, thus predicting left-versus rightward behavioral biases. Our "brain's asymmetric frequency tuning" hypothesis explains the perceptual origin of horizontal SNAs for nonsymbolic visual numerosities and might be extensible to the auditory domain.…
Author details: | Arianna FelisattiORCiDGND, Jochen LaubrockORCiDGND, Samuel ShakiORCiD, Martin H. FischerORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14418 |
ISSN: | 0077-8923 |
ISSN: | 1749-6632 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32645221 |
Title of parent work (English): | Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences |
Subtitle (English): | the brain's asymmetric frequency tuning |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Place of publishing: | Hoboken |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2020/07/09 |
Publication year: | 2020 |
Release date: | 2023/05/25 |
Tag: | SNARC effect; frequency tuning; hemispheric asymmetry; numerical cognition; spatial; spatial vision; spatial-numerical associations |
Volume: | 1477 |
Issue: | 1 |
Number of pages: | 10 |
First page: | 44 |
Last Page: | 53 |
Funding institution: | transnational E-RARE grant `CCMCURE (DFG)European Commission [SFB958]; E-RARE [ERL 138397]; Canadian; Institutes for Health ResearchCanadian Institutes of Health Research; (CIHR) [PJT 153000]; the E-RARE grant `CCMCURE |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Psychologie |
DDC classification: | 1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Hybrid Open-Access |
License (German): | ![]() |