Abstract
The ordinal position effect posits that items positioned earlier in an ordinal sequence are responded to faster with the left key than the right key, and items positioned later in an ordinal sequence are responded to faster with the right key than the left key. Although the mechanism of the ordinal position effect has been investigated in many studies, it is unclear whether the ordinal position effect can extend to the auditory modality and the hands crossed context. Therefore, the present study employed days as the order information to investigate this question. Days were visually or acoustically displayed on a screen in random order, and participants were instructed to judge whether the probe day they perceived was before or after the current day (days-relevant task) or to identify the color or voice of the probe day they perceived (days-irrelevant task). The results indicate the following: (a) The days before the current day were responded to faster with the left key than the right key, and the days after the current day were responded to faster with the right key than the left key, both when the days-relevant task and the days-irrelevant task were performed, regardless of the sense modality. (b) The ordinal position effect for judgments of days was also obtained in the auditory modality even when the hands were crossed. These results indicate that the ordinal position effect can extend to the auditory modality and the hands crossed context, similar to the spatial-numerical association of response codes effect of numbers.
Highlights
Dehaene and his collaborators displayed Arabic numerals ranging from one to nine one at a time centrally on a screen and instructed participants to judge whether the probe number was an odd or even number by pressing the left or right key on a keyboard
A further simple effect analysis showed that the days before today were responded to faster with left key presses (676 Æ 22.41 ms) than right key presses (723 Æ 27.26 ms), F(1, 37) 1⁄4 5.21, p < .05, Z2 1⁄4 0.123, and the days after today were responded to faster with right key presses (649 Æ 19.59 ms) than left key presses (710 Æ 26.48 ms), F(1, 37) 1⁄4 8.94, p < .01, Z2 1⁄4 0.195, which suggests that the ordinal position effect occurred in the processing of the day sequence (Figure 1)
The simple effect analysis showed that the days before today were responded to faster with left key presses (452 Æ 9.09 ms) than the days after today (464 Æ 10.34 ms), F(1, 37) 1⁄4 5.02, p < .05, Z2 1⁄4 0.119, and the days after today were responded to slightly faster with right key presses (449 Æ 9.55 ms) than the days before today (453 Æ 10.92 ms), F(1, 37) 1⁄4 0.77, p > .05, Z2 1⁄4 0.02, which suggests that the ordinal position effect occurred in the processing of the day sequence when the days-irrelevant task was performed (Figure 2)
Summary
Dehaene and his collaborators displayed Arabic numerals ranging from one to nine (except five) one at a time centrally on a screen and instructed participants to judge whether the probe number was an odd or even number by pressing the left or right key on a keyboard. Many subsequent researchers have found that the SNARC effect survives in the processing of Arabic numbers (Schwarz & Muller, 2006; Tan & Dixon, 2011; White, Szu00 cs, & Soltesz, 2012; Wood, Willmes, Nuerk, & Fischer, 2008) but is observed in the processing of other numerical and nonnumerical stimuli (e.g., pitch, luminance, and emotional pictures denoting different levels of happiness; Calabria & Rossetti, 2005; Cho, Bae, & Proctor, 2012; Fumarola et al, 2014; Holmes & Lourenco, 2011; Liu, Mai, & Fu, 2004; Kirjakovski & Utsuki, 2012) These studies further provided direct evidence for the MNL hypothesis. The SNARC effect is viewed as a gold standard to examine whether a particular stimulus is spatially represented
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