Abstract
There is evidence both for mental number representations along a horizontal mental number line with larger numbers to the right of smaller numbers (for Western cultures) and a physically grounded, vertical representation where “more is up.” Few studies have compared effects in the horizontal and vertical dimension and none so far have combined both dimensions within a single paradigm where numerical magnitude was task-irrelevant and none of the dimensions was primed by a response dimension. We now investigated number representations over both dimensions, building on findings that mental representations of numbers and space co-activate each other. In a Go/No-go experiment, participants were auditorily primed with a relatively small or large number and then visually presented with quasi-randomly distributed distractor symbols and one Arabic target number (in Go trials only). Participants pressed a central button whenever they detected the target number and elsewise refrained from responding. Responses were not more efficient when small numbers were presented to the left and large numbers to the right. However, results indicated that large numbers were associated with upper space more strongly than small numbers. This suggests that in two-dimensional space when no response dimension is given, numbers are conceptually associated with vertical, but not horizontal space.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Cognition, a section of the journal Frontiers in PsychologyReceived: 05 October 2018 Accepted: 18 January 2019 Published: 05 February 2019Citation: Sixtus E, Lonnemann J, Fischer MH and Werner K (2019) Mental Number Representations in 2D Space
The results suggest that large numbers were more strongly associated with upper space than small numbers
We compared spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) in horizontal and vertical space and found that large numbers were more strongly associated with upper space than small numbers, implying a bottom-small to top-large directionality
Summary
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Cognition, a section of the journal Frontiers in PsychologyReceived: 05 October 2018 Accepted: 18 January 2019 Published: 05 February 2019. Previous research suggests that this horizontal association partly depends on individual experiences One example of such experiences are cultural conventions such as reading direction (Dehaene et al, 1993; Shaki and Fischer, 2008; Shaki et al, 2009; Fischer et al, 2010; see Nuerk et al, 2015 for a discussion of mechanisms contributing to the influence of reading direction). Fischer (2012; see Fischer and Brugger, 2011; Pezzulo et al, 2011) suggested that the vertical association should be more stable than the horizontal one because it results from experience with laws of physics (e.g., a pile containing a larger number of objects is higher) This vertical spatial association of magnitude is considered to be universal because physical laws apply regardless of cultural habits
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