The Association of Number and Space Under Different Tasks: Insight From a Process Perspective.

Yinghe Chen,Zhijun Deng,Yanjun Li,Meng Zhang,Xiaoshuang Zhu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00957

Abstract

We investigated the Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect in 240 adults using a parity judgment and a magnitude classification task. Eight numbers from 1 to 9 except 5 were randomly presented one at a time, half of the participants were asked to compare these number with the target number 5 in the magnitude classification task; the other half of the participants were asked to judge whether these numbers were even or odd. It was called a phase when all eight numbers were tested; there were in total 16 phases. Detailed analyses of the changes in response times across the range of numbers and the chronological trend of the SNARC effect size over 16 phases estimated by a curvilinear regression model were reported. This phase-to-phase design and analyses provide an insight into the process of the SNARC effect in different tasks. We found that the SNARC effect emerged earlier and stayed more stable in magnitude classification task than in the parity task during the time course. Furthermore, the size of SNARC effect increased with time in the magnitude classification task, whereas it fluctuated up and down over time in the parity task. These findings indicate that the association of the number and space is dynamic and the process of the SNARC effect varies across tasks.

Highlights

It is well known that the processing of numerical magnitude is closely related to spatial processing in the domain of numerical cognition (Wood et al, 2008; Fias et al, 2011)
Researchers found that the directional component of a prior spatial activity modulated the strength of the Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect (Shaki and Fischer, 2008; Fischer et al, 2010). These findings indicate that spatial–numerical associations are not fixed; they can be affected by tasks and measurements
There were 2.29% of trials were with error for magnitude classification task; there were 3.82% of trials were with error for parity judgment task

Summary

INTRODUCTION

It is well known that the processing of numerical magnitude is closely related to spatial processing in the domain of numerical cognition (Wood et al, 2008; Fias et al, 2011). Researchers found that the directional component of a prior spatial activity (e.g., directions in number placement or text-reading) modulated the strength of the SNARC effect (Shaki and Fischer, 2008; Fischer et al, 2010) These findings indicate that spatial–numerical associations are not fixed; they can be affected by tasks and measurements. Studies (Notebaert et al, 2006; Fischer et al, 2010; Pfister et al, 2013) with such sequential modulation provide a finer measurement of the dynamics of the SNARC effect, and indicate that the spatial–numerical associations could be a real-time control process This trial-to-trial design may be useful for parity judgment tasks, but it can not be applied to a magnitude classification task, because in a magnitude classification task, congruent trials and incongruent trials are often separated into two blocks. Our phase-to-phase design and analyses provided a micro-level perspective for better understanding the process of number and space association and its variations in different numerical tasks

Participants

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

ETHICS STATEMENT