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- embodied cognition (6)
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Stimulating numbers
(2018)
Finger counting is one of the first steps in the development of mature number concepts. With a one-to-one correspondence of fingers to numbers in Western finger counting, fingers hold two numerical meanings: one is based on the number of fingers raised and the second is based on their ordinal position within the habitual finger counting sequence. This study investigated how these two numerical meanings of fingers are intertwined with numerical cognition in adults. Participants received tactile stimulation on their fingertips of one hand and named either the number of fingers stimulated (2, 3, or 4 fingers; Experiment 1) or the number of stimulations on one fingertip (2, 3, or 4 stimulations; Experiment 2). Responses were faster and more accurate when the set of stimulated fingers corresponded to finger counting habits (Experiment 1) and when the number of stimulations matched the ordinal position of the stimulated finger (Experiment 2). These results show that tactile numerosity perception is affected by individual finger counting habits and that those habits give numerical meaning to single fingers.
The visual number world
(2018)
In the domain of language research, the simultaneous presentation of a visual scene and its auditory description (i.e., the visual world paradigm) has been used to reveal the timing of mental mechanisms. Here we apply this rationale to the domain of numerical cognition in order to explore the differences between fast and slow arithmetic performance, and to further study the role of spatial-numerical associations during mental arithmetic. We presented 30 healthy adults simultaneously with visual displays containing four numbers and with auditory addition and subtraction problems. Analysis of eye movements revealed that participants look spontaneously at the numbers they currently process (operands, solution). Faster performance was characterized by shorter latencies prior to fixating the relevant numbers and fewer revisits to the first operand while computing the solution. These signatures of superior task performance were more pronounced for addition and visual numbers arranged in ascending order, and for subtraction and numbers arranged in descending order (compared to the opposite pairings). Our results show that the visual number world-paradigm provides on-line access to the mind during mental arithmetic, is able to capture variability in arithmetic performance, and is sensitive to visual layout manipulations that are otherwise not reflected in response time measurements.
Mimicking non-verbal emotional expressions and empathy development in simulated consultations
(2018)
Objective: To explore the feasibility of applying an experimental design to study the relationship between non-verbal emotions and empathy development in simulated consultations.
Method: In video-recorded simulated consultations, twenty clinicians were randomly allocated to either an experimental group (instructed to mimic non-verbal emotions of a simulated patient, SP) or a control group (no such instruction). Baseline empathy scores were obtained before consultation, relational empathy was rated by SP after consultation. Multilevel logistic regression modelled the probability of mimicry occurrence, controlling for baseline empathy and clinical experience. ANCOVA compared group differences on relational empathy and consultation smoothness.
Results: Instructed mimicry lasted longer than spontaneous mimicry. Mimicry was marginally related to improved relational empathy. SP felt being treated more like a whole person during consultations with spontaneous mimicry. Clinicians who displayed spontaneous mimicry felt consultations went more smoothly.
Conclusion: The experimental approach improved our understanding of how non-verbal emotional mimicry contributed to relational empathy development during consultations. Further work should ascertain the potential of instructed mimicry to enhance empathy development.
Practice implications: Understanding how non-verbal emotional mimicry impacts on patients’ perceived clinician empathy during consultations may inform training and intervention programme development.
Even before formal schooling, children map numbers onto space in a directional manner. The origin of this preliterate spatial–numerical association is still debated. We investigated the role of enculturation for shaping the directionality of the association between numbers and space, focusing on counting behavior in 3- to 5-year-old preliterate children. Two studies provide evidence that, after observing reading from storybooks (left-to-right or right-to-left reading) children change their counting direction in line with the direction of observed reading. Just observing visuospatial directional movements had no such effect on counting direction. Complementarily, we document that book illustrations, prevalent in children’s cultures, exhibit directionality that conforms to the direction of a culture’s written language. We propose that shared book reading activates spatiotemporal representations of order in young children, which in turn affect their spatial representation of numbers.
Spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) have been studied extensively in the past two decades, always requiring either explicit magnitude processing or explicit spatial-directional processing. This means that the typical finding of an association of small numbers with left or bottom space and of larger numbers with right or top space could be due to these requirements and not the conceptual representation of numbers. The present study compares explicit and implicit magnitude processing in an implicit spatial-directional task and identifies SNAs as artefacts of either explicit magnitude processing or explicit spatial-directional processing; they do not reveal spatial conceptual links. This finding requires revision of current accounts of the relationship between numbers and space.
Numerical knowledge, including number concepts and arithmetic procedures, seems to be a clear-cut case for abstract symbol manipulation. Yet, evidence from perceptual and motor behaviour reveals that natural number knowledge and simple arithmetic also remain closely associated with modal experiences. Following a review of behavioural, animal and neuroscience studies of number processing, we propose a revised understanding of psychological number concepts as grounded in physical constraints, embodied in experience and situated through task-specific intentions. The idea that number concepts occupy a range of positions on the continuum between abstract and modal conceptual knowledge also accounts for systematic heuristics and biases in mental arithmetic, thus inviting psycho-logical approaches to the study of the mathematical mind.
Language and Arithmetic
(2018)
We examined cross-domain semantic priming effects between arithmetic and language. We paired subtractions with their linguistic equivalent, exception phrases (EPs) with positive quantifiers (e.g., "everybody except John") while pairing additions with their own linguistic equivalent, EPs with negative quantifiers (e.g., "nobody except John"; Moltmann, 1995). We hypothesized that EPs with positive quantifiers prime subtractions and inhibit additions while EPs with negative quantifiers prime additions and inhibit subtractions. Furthermore, we expected similar priming and inhibition effects from arithmetic into semantics. Our design allowed for a bidirectional analysis by using one trial's target as the prime for the next trial. Two experiments failed to show significant priming effects in either direction. Implications and possible shortcomings are explored in the general discussion.