Abstract
The Attentional Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (Att-SNARC) effect has shown that number perception induces shifts in spatial attention (Fischer et al., 2003; Dodd et al., 2008). However, many replications were attempted and they often failed. In the present study, we investigated whether the Att-SNARC effect can be found for numbers in different notations: months in Arabic form, Simplified Chinese form, Traditional Chinese form (includes numerical ordinal information) and in Chinese non-numerical form (an ordinal sequence). By varying the cognitive task, we also examined whether the effect is a consequence of automatic perceptual processing. In Experiment 1, an Att-SNARC effect was observed for numbers regardless of notation. In Experiment 2 (order-irrelevant task) and Experiment 3 (order-relevant task), the effect was also found consistently for months in Arabic form, Simplified Chinese form, and Traditional Chinese form. This effect was not observed for months in Chinese non-numerical form in Experiment 3. These results show that number and numerical sequence perception automatically causes a spatial shift of attention. Our study provides positive evidence for the Att-SNARC effect and indicates that the effect can generalize to other numerical ordinal sequences that contain numeric information.
Highlights
There is a strong association between number and space
As the effect appeared with all three numerical notations (Arabic, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese forms), the form of stimulus may not affect the Att-SNARC effect whereas information about magnitude plays an important role in numerical processing during the Att-SNARC effect
In Experiment 2, we further investigated whether the Att-SNARC effect can generalize to other ordinal numerical sequences
Summary
There is a strong association between number and space. The spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC, Dehaene et al, 1993) effect has been found in a range of studies, showing that when participants make judgments of number magnitude or parity, leftsided response are faster for low-magnitude numbers, whereas right-sided responses are faster for high-magnitude numbers (Fias and Fischer, 2005; Van Dijck et al, 2012). Some researchers believe that these effects can be explained by the putative Mental Number Line (MNL; Restle, 1970; Dehaene et al, 1993; Fischer et al, 2003), a mental representation of number magnitude ordered from left to right in space in which relatively small numbers are associated with left and relatively large numbers with right. According to this view, the effect arises because of the spatial correspondence between the inherent position of the number on the MNL and the position of response keys (Fattorini et al, 2015; Pellegrino et al, 2019). Other researchers claim that reading habits (Dehaene et al, 1993; Shaki et al, 2009; Fischer et al, 2010; Fischer and Brugger, 2011; Göbel et al, 2011) and finger counting (Fischer, 2008; Eerland et al, 2011; Fischer and Brugger, 2011; Lindemann et al, 2011) contribute to the effect
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