Small numerosities are associated with the left, large numerosities are associated with the right: Evidence from a SNARC task

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Small numerosities are associated with the left, large numerosities are associated with the right: Evidence from a SNARC task Fiona Nemeh1, Mark Yates2*, Tobias Loetscher3, Anna Ma-Wyatt4 and Michael E. Nicholls3 1 University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, Australia 2 University of Melbourne, School of Psychological Sciences, Australia 3 Flinders University, School of Psychology, Australia 4 University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, Australia A central finding within numerical cognition is that symbolic numbers (e.g. Arabic numerals) are represented spatially with smaller numbers on the left and larger numbers on the right (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes, or 'SNARC' effect). This study explored whether non-symbolic numbers, i.e. dot cloud stimuli of varying numerosities, are also represented spatially. Participants judged whether a briefly presented dot cloud stimulus contained more or less dots than a reference dot cloud. It was predicted that dot clouds with less (more) dots would be categorised more quickly with the left (right) hand. This effect was observed, but may have been due to numerosity per se, or total dot surface area, which co-varied with numerosity in the initial experiment. To disambiguate between these two possibilities, a follow-up experiment was conducted in which total dot surface area was held constant as numerosity increased. The effect remained, suggesting that non-symbolic numbers are also represented spatially. Keywords: SNARC effect, magnitude representation, Keywords: Numerical Cognition, Non-symbolic numerosity, Number- space associations Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Cognition and Executive Processes Citation: Nemeh F, Yates M, Loetscher T, Ma-Wyatt A and Nicholls ME (2015). Small numerosities are associated with the left, large numerosities are associated with the right: Evidence from a SNARC task. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00225 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Dr. Mark Yates, University of Melbourne, School of Psychological Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, mjyates@unmelb.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Fiona Nemeh Mark Yates Tobias Loetscher Anna Ma-Wyatt Michael E Nicholls Google Fiona Nemeh Mark Yates Tobias Loetscher Anna Ma-Wyatt Michael E Nicholls Google Scholar Fiona Nemeh Mark Yates Tobias Loetscher Anna Ma-Wyatt Michael E Nicholls PubMed Fiona Nemeh Mark Yates Tobias Loetscher Anna Ma-Wyatt Michael E Nicholls Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.