The right side of price: evidence of a SNARC-like effect for economic value

Abstract

It is well known that both numerical and non-numerical magnitudes can be represented horizontally from left to right. Building on this knowledge, here we explored whether a similar spatial representation exists for the economic value of goods. Participants were presented with images of a reference and a target product and classified the economic value of the target as higher or lower than that of the reference (Experiments 1 and 2), or classified the target product as belonging to the same or different semantic category as the reference (Experiment 3). Responses were collected using lateralized keys. Evidence of a SNARC-like effect for economic value emerged, whereby low economic value was associated with the left side of space, and high economic value was associated with the right side of space. Importantly, this spatial representation appeared to be based on external spatial coordinates and only emerged when the economic value was treated as an explicit dimension. Regression analyses also ruled out the potential contributions of other dimensions, such as the presumed physical weight of the target products or their valence. These findings support the hypothesis of a general magnitude representation system.