Influence of Number Location on the SNARC Effect: Evidence From the Processing of Rotated Traditional Chinese Numerical Words.

Zhiwei Wang,Xiaotong Zhu,Yingjie Jiang

doi:10.1177/2041669520917169

Abstract

Studies have widely captured the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect in the processing of various types of numbers in which small numbers are responded to faster with the left hand than with the right hand and larger numbers are responded to faster with the right hand than with the left hand. Although a few studies have explored Arabic numbers to further investigate the influence of number location on the SNARC effect, it remains unclear whether the influence of number location on the SNARC effect is moderated by numerical semantic processing difficulty and the task performed. This study explored traditional Chinese numerical words and rotated them to certain angles, which can increase numerical semantic processing difficulty, to further investigate the influence of the stimulus–response compatibility effect and Simon effect on the SNARC effect in a space classification task (Experiment 1), numerical magnitude classification task (Experiment 2), numerical parity classification task (Experiment 3), and color classification task (Experiment 4). The results indicated that (a) the stimulus–response compatibility effect, not the SNARC effect, prevailed in the numerical space classification task; (b) the SNARC effect, not the Simon effect, prevailed in the numerical magnitude and parity classification task; and (c) the Simon effect and the SNARC effect coexisted in the color classification task. These results suggested that the influence of number location on the SNARC effect was moderated by the task performed. Implications for the theory of the SNARC effect and Simon effect are discussed.

Highlights

Studies have widely captured the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect in the processing of various types of numbers in which small numbers are responded to faster with the left hand than with the right hand and larger numbers are responded to faster with the right hand than with the left hand
We further investigated whether the difficulty of the task, which was irrelevant to both the numerical magnitude and numerical spatial location, would moderate the influence of the Simon effect on the SNARC effect
Previous studies explored Arabic numbers to investigate the influence of the Simon effect on the SNARC effect, and the results showed that the Simon effect and the SNARC effect could coexist when the numerical parity classification task was performed (Gevers et al, 2005; Mapelli et al, 2003; Notebaert et al, 2006)

Summary

Introduction

Studies have widely captured the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect in the processing of various types of numbers in which small numbers are responded to faster with the left hand than with the right hand and larger numbers are responded to faster with the right hand than with the left hand. The results showed that small numbers were responded to faster with the left key than with the right key, and large numbers were responded to faster with the right key than with the left key, regardless of what classification task was performed The authors defined this compatibility effect as the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect (Dehaene et al, 1990, 1993). In one study, when participants were asked to classify the external spatial location of specific stimuli by pressing a specific key with the left or right hand, stimuli presented on the left side were responded to faster with the left hand than with the right hand, and stimuli presented on the right side were responded to faster with the right hand than with the left hand This phenomenon is called the spatial stimulus–response compatibility (SRC) effect (Bo€ffel & Musseler, 2019; Fitts & Seeger, 1953; Lien & Proctor, 2002; Shi et al, 2020; Yamaguchi et al, 2018). The polarity of small numbers was consistent with the polarity of pressing the left key, and the polarity of large numbers was consistent with the polarity of pressing the right key; the SNARC effect occurred in the processing of numbers (Pinto et al, 2019; Proctor & Cho, 2006; Proctor & Xiong, 2015; Shi et al, 2020)

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