Abstract
Money is a special stimulus for humans, because of its relevance in everyday life. However, the basic mechanisms underlying money representation have not yet been fully investigated. Left-right asymmetries in the visual perception and evaluation of monetary value offer such a possibility. The pattern of these asymmetries can contribute to disentangle between numerical and emotional processes possibly involved in banknotes perception. In the present experiment, we tested the recognition of 5€and 100€ banknotes presented in the left and right visual fields. Results show that the 100€ banknote is recognized faster than the 5€ banknote in the Right Visual Field (RVF), while there is no difference in the Left Visual Field (LVF). Our interpretation is that this effect is due to the matching between the positive valence conveyed by the 100€ banknote and the side in which it is mapped (right-positive). We consider this result as evidence of a valence-based recognition of banknotes.
Highlights
Our brain tends to map quantities and affective valence in relation to individuals’ horizontal space
We performed an analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post-hoc Duncan’s comparisons at level of significance p = 0.05 for each of the two dependent variables (PEs, RTs), using the following within-subject factors: Visual Field, Stimulus Type and Value (5€, 100€)
The pilot experiment revealed that the 100€ banknote is judged as more positive than the 5€ banknote, which is in turn judged as neutral
Summary
Our brain tends to map quantities and affective valence in relation to individuals’ horizontal space. The representation of numerical magnitude seems to be based on a mental mapping of numbers, oriented from left to right, the Mental Number Line (MNL; Dehaene, 2011), which assumes smaller numbers to be represented on the left side of visual space and larger numbers on its right side. The representation of affective valence has been interpreted as an instance of left-right mapping, in this case of positive-negative affective valence, depending on the dominant hand. Because when we use our dominant hand, actions are performed more and smoothly compared to those performed by the non-dominant hand, a right-handed person would tend to attribute positive valence to stimuli placed on the right side (i.e., “Good Is right” mapping), whereas
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