Symbolic Stimuli Research Articles

(Dis)similarities between non-symbolic and symbolic number representations: Insights from vector space models

Empirical evidence in support of a shared system for non-symbolic and symbolic number processing has been inconclusive. The current study aims to address this question in a novel way, specifically by testing whether the efficient coding principle based on co-occurrence of number symbols in natural language holds for both non-symbolic and symbolic number processing. The efficient coding principle postulates that perception is optimized when stimuli frequently co-occur in a natural environment. We hypothesized that both numerical ratios and co-occurrence frequencies of symbolic numbers would significantly influence participants' performance on a non-symbolic and symbolic number comparison task. To test this hypothesis, we employed latent semantic analysis on a TASA corpus to quantify number co-occurrence in natural language and calculate language similarity estimates. We engaged 73 native English speakers (mean age = 19.36, standard deviation = 1.83) with normal or corrected vision and no learning disorders in a number comparison task involving non-symbolic (dot arrays) and symbolic stimuli (Arabic numerals and English number words). Results showed that numerical ratios significantly predicted participants' performances across all number formats (ps < 0.001). Language similarity estimates derived from everyday language also predicted performance on the non-symbolic task and the symbolic task involving number words (ps < 0.007). Our results highlight the complex nature of numerical processing, pointing to the co-occurrence of number symbols in natural language as an auxiliary factor in understanding the shared characteristics between non-symbolic and symbolic number representations. Given that our study focused on a limited number range (5 to 16) and a specific task type, future studies should explore a wider range of tasks and numbers to further test the role of the efficient coding principle in number processing.

Relevance acquisition through motivational incentives: Modeling the time-course of associative learning and the role of visual features

Abstract Motivational relevance associated with symbolic stimuli impacts both neural and behavioral responses, similar to visual stimuli with inherent emotional valence. However, the specific effects of associated relevance on early sensory stages and lexico-semantic processing of these stimuli remain unclear, particularly considering the role of low-level visual features in relevance acquisition. To address these issues, we employed an associative learning paradigm in which we manipulated visual features, but not the stimuli themselves. The study (N = 48) included a learning phase, where pseudowords were associated with either gain, loss, or neutral outcomes. This was followed by a test phase the next day, involving an old/new decision task, in which stimuli were presented in either the same or a different font. During both phases, pupil responses and event-related brain potentials (P1, Early Posterior Negativity (EPN), Late Positive Complex (LPC), P3) were measured. Stronger pupil responses and increased neural activation in early visual encoding (P1) and lexico-semantic processing (EPN) were observed during relevance acquisition, particularly for loss associations. After relevance acquisition, the most substantial effect on modulating lexico-semantic processing was observed for gain associations, as evidenced by both behavioral responses and neural activity. During the test phase, exposure to incongruent visual features of the stimuli influenced the same processes that were observed during relevance acquisition. Notably, these effects of visual feature congruence were independent of those of associated motivational relevance. These results highlight the dynamic nature of motivational relevance effects, revealing differential effects observed during acquisition and the test phase, as well as between earlier perceptual processing and later neural and behavioral responses.

Spatial attention in mental arithmetic: A literature review and meta-analysis.

We review the evidence for the conceptual association between arithmetic and space and quantify the effect size in meta-analyses. We focus on three effects: (a) the operational momentum effect (OME), which has been defined as participants' tendency to overestimate results of addition problems and underestimate results of subtraction problems; (b) the arithmetic cueing effect, in which arithmetic problems serve as spatial cues in target detection or temporal order judgment tasks; and (c) the associations between arithmetic and space observed with eye- and hand-tracking studies. The OME was consistently found in paradigms that provided the participants with numerical response alternatives. The OME shows a large effect size, driven by an underestimation during subtraction while addition was unbiased. In contrast, paradigms in which participants indicated their estimate by transcoding their final estimate to a spatial reference frame revealed no consistent OME. Arithmetic cueing studies show a reliable small to medium effect size, driven by a rightward bias for addition. Finally, eye- and hand-tracking studies point to replicable associations between arithmetic and eye or hand movements. To account for the complexity of the observed pattern, we introduce the Adaptive Pathways in Mental Arithmetic (APiMA) framework. The model accommodates central notions of numerical and arithmetic processing and helps identifying which pathway a given paradigm operates on. It proposes that the divergence between OME and arithmetic cueing studies comes from the predominant use of non-symbolic versus symbolic stimuli, respectively. Overall, our review and findings clearly support an association between arithmetic and spatial processing.

Maze runners: monkeys show restricted Arabic numeral summation during computerized two-arm maze performance

Mazes have been used in many forms to provide compelling results showcasing nonhuman animals’ capacities for spatial navigation, planning, and numerical competence. The current study presented computerized two-arm mazes to four rhesus macaques. Using these mazes, we assessed whether the monkeys could maximize rewards by overcoming mild delays in gratification and sum the values of Arabic numerals. Across four test phases, monkeys used a joystick controller to choose one of two maze arms on the screen. Each maze arm contained zero, one or two Arabic numerals, and any numerals in the chosen maze arm provided the monkeys with rewards equivalent to the value of those numerals. When deciding which arm to enter, monkeys had to consider distance to numerals and numeral value. In some tests, gaining the maximum reward required summing the value of two numerals within a given arm. All four monkeys successfully maximized reward when comparing single numerals and when comparing arms that each contained two numerals. However, some biases occurred that were suboptimal: the largest single numeral and the delay of reward (by placing numerals farther into an arm from the start location) sometimes interfered with the monkeys’ abilities to optimize. These results indicate that monkeys experience difficulties with inhibition toward single, high valence stimuli in tasks where those stimuli must be considered in relation to overall value when represented by symbolic stimuli such as numerals.

The brain lateralization and development of math functions: progress since Sperry, 1974.

In 1974, Roger Sperry, based on his seminal studies on the split-brain condition, concluded that math was almost exclusively sustained by the language dominant left hemisphere. The right hemisphere could perform additions up to sums less than 20, the only exception to a complete left hemisphere dominance. Studies on lateralized focal lesions came to a similar conclusion, except for written complex calculation, where spatial abilities are needed to display digits in the right location according to the specific requirements of calculation procedures. Fifty years later, the contribution of new theoretical and instrumental tools lead to a much more complex picture, whereby, while left hemisphere dominance for math in the right-handed is confirmed for most functions, several math related tasks seem to be carried out in the right hemisphere. The developmental trajectory in the lateralization of math functions has also been clarified. This corpus of knowledge is reviewed here. The right hemisphere does not simply offer its support when calculation requires generic space processing, but its role can be very specific. For example, the right parietal lobe seems to store the operation-specific spatial layout required for complex arithmetical procedures and areas like the right insula are necessary in parsing complex numbers containing zero. Evidence is found for a complex orchestration between the two hemispheres even for simple tasks: each hemisphere has its specific role, concurring to the correct result. As for development, data point to right dominance for basic numerical processes. The picture that emerges at school age is a bilateral pattern with a significantly greater involvement of the right-hemisphere, particularly in non-symbolic tasks. The intraparietal sulcus shows a left hemisphere preponderance in response to symbolic stimuli at this age.

Memory Collective in the Visual Rhetoric of Traditional Packaging Designs

Campaigns against environmental issues are now being voiced more and more, one of which is the problem of waste due to packaging. The packaging process uses organic materials, mainly producing waste that can pollute the environment. Packaging has been done by the community through the system of storing dish ingredients. Consumerist societies appear as a result of consuming signs, and any signs that appear visually greatly affect the target motivational audience both intrinsically and extrinsically. The representation of visual language in the form of processed natural materials into packaging products gives rise to the perception of traditional imagery. The fact that the packaging design at the company Jajanan Rakyat Khas Indonesia ( jarkasi) still maintains natural ingredients for traditional food products in Blitar is a concern in this study. This study uses qualitative research with intrinsic case studies that will discuss the packaging design of regional culinary dishes that use noodle-style ingredients as product wrappers. Research was conducted using interpretation analysis methods with a semiotic approach through sign science to observe symptoms that appear.This technique depicts traditional images that appear in packaging designs that use natural materials as research objects and inherent attributes as visual signs that can build persuasive messages of traditional images. The use of natural ingredients in the choice of packaging is intentional due to the value proposition in snack products offered to consumers, where the value proposition is a special offer allocated to consumers and potential consumers. Overall, the memory of the manifestation of past cultural products has special values that are built through the process of in-memory transmission until it is meaningful. This meaning will be passed on to other potential consumers through a symbolic stimulus as a collective of memory.&#x0D; Keywords: memory, visual, rhetoric, packaging, design

Middle-schoolers' misconceptions in discretized nonsymbolic proportional reasoning explain fraction biases better than their continuous reasoning: Evidence from correlation and cluster analyses

Early emerging nonsymbolic proportional skills have been posited as a foundational ability for later fraction learning. A positive relation between nonsymbolic and symbolic proportional reasoning has been reported, as well as successful nonsymbolic training and intervention programs enhancing fraction magnitude skills. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Of particular interest are nonsymbolic representations, which can be in continuous formats that may emphasize proportional relations and in discretized formats that may prompt erroneous whole-number strategies and hamper access to fraction magnitudes. We assessed the proportional comparison skills of 159 middle-school students (mean age = 12.54 years, 43% females, 55% males, 2% other or prefer not to say) across three types of representations: (a) continuous, unsegmented bars, (b) discretized, segmented bars that allowed counting strategies, and (c) symbolic fractions. Using both correlational and cluster approaches, we also examined their relations to symbolic fraction comparison ability. Within each stimulus type, we varied proportional distance, and in the discretized and symbolic stimuli, we also manipulated whole-number congruency. We found that fraction distance across all formats modulated middle-schoolers' performance; however, whole-number information affected discretized and symbolic comparison performance. Further, continuous and discretized nonsymbolic performance was related to fraction comparison ability; however, discretized skills explained variance above and beyond the contributions of continuous skills. Finally, our cluster analyses revealed three nonsymbolic comparison profiles: students who chose the bars with the largest number of segments (whole-number bias), chance-level performers, and high performers. Crucially, students with a whole-number bias profile showed this bias in their fraction skills and failed to show any symbolic distance modulation. Together, our results indicate that the relation between nonsymbolic and symbolic proportional skills may be determined by the (mis)conceptions based on discretized representations, rather than understandings of proportional magnitudes, suggesting that interventions focusing on competence with discretized representations may show dividends for fraction understanding.

On the dynamics of gain and loss: Electrophysiological evidence from associative learning

Associated relevance affects the sensory encoding of low-level visual features of symbolic stimuli. It is unclear, however, which dimension of low-level visual features benefits from prioritized processing, and how these effects develop throughout the course of relevance acquisition. Moreover, previous evidence is inconclusive regarding the preservation of processing advantage once the association is no longer relevant, as well as its generalization to perceptually similar but novel stimuli. The present study addresses these questions by employing an associative learning paradigm. In two experiments (N = 24 each, between-subject design), different dimensions of low-level visual features of symbolic stimuli were associated with monetary gain, loss, or zero outcome. In a consecutive old/new decision task, associated stimuli were presented together with perceptually similar but novel stimuli. Event-related brain potentials (P1, EPN, LPC) were measured throughout both sessions. Early sensory encoding (P1) was boosted by loss association and appeared to be sensitive to the dimension of the associated low-level visual features. Gain association influenced post-perceptual processing stages (LPC), arising over the course of the learning phase, and are preserved even when the associated outcome was no longer relevant. Gain association also resulted in EPN modulations similar to the effects observed in the case of emotional words. None of the observed effects generalized to perceptually similar stimuli. These results show that acquired relevance can influence the sensory processing of specific dimensions of low-level visual features. Moreover, this study extends previous evidence of a dissociation of early and late neural effects of associated motivational relevance.

The Analysis of Influential Factors of College Students' Purchasing Behaviors on Taobao Snacks

In recent years, college students have become the main force of purchasing snacks on Taobao. That’s why this paper takes college students as the research object. Adapt the purchasing behavior model of Taobao snacks consumers based on the Howard-Sheth model, and find out the factors that have the greatest impact on purchasing behavior among the variables contained in these dimensions. Including significant stimulus, symbolic stimulus, social stimulus and customer perceived value. This paper uses SPSS software to statistically analyse 235 valid questionnaires collected. The results show that: (1) Input variables have a significant positive impact on customer perceived value and purchasing behavior. (2) Customer perceived value has a significant positive impact and intermediary effect on purchasing behavior. Customer perceived value has the strongest impact and intermediary effect on purchasing behavior among customer perceived value and emotional value. (3) Social stimulation has the greatest impact on purchasing behavior among all input variables, and the most influential factor is personal value. (4) Price has the greatest impact on purchasing behavior among all significant stimuli. (5) Web advertising has the greatest impact on purchasing behavior among all symbolic stimuli. It is hoped that the research results will help Taobao snack merchants develop more effective marketing programs attract college student customers.

The Affect Misattribution in the Interpretation of Ambiguous Stimuli in Terms of Warmth vs. Competence: Behavioral Phenomenon and Its Neural Correlates.

Warmth and competence are fundamental dimensions of social cognition. This also applies to the interpretation of ambiguous symbolic stimuli in terms of their relation to warmth or competence. The affective state of an individual may affect the way people interpret the neutral stimuli in the environment. As previous findings have shown, it is possible to alter the perception of neutral social stimuli in terms of warmth vs. competence by eliciting an incidental affect with the use of emotion-laden words. In the current experiment, we expected the valence and origin of an affective state, factors ascribing emotionally laden words, to be able to switch the interpretation of the neutral objects. We have shown in behavioural results that negative valence and reflective origins promote the interpretation of unknown objects in terms of competence rather than warmth. Furthermore, electrophysiological-response-locked analyses revealed differences specific to negative valence while making the decision in the ambiguous task and while executing it. The results of the current experiment show that the usage of warmth and competence in social cognition is susceptible to affective state manipulation. In addition, the results are coherent with the evolutionary perspective on social cognition (valence effects) as well as with predictions of the dual mind model of emotion (origin effects).

I'll (not) take that: The reverse-reward contingency task as a test of self-control and inhibition.

While searching for more evidence of quantitative skills in chimpanzees to add to what she already had found, Boysen discovered something else. When training chimpanzees to point at what they would not get, and not pointing at what they would get, none could do this for piles of food items. Even when those items in the pointed-at set were given away to another chimpanzee, and even with experience in the task, failure persisted. This test, the reverse-reward contingency test, has now been used with many species, as a means of assessing inhibitory control and perhaps self-control in animals. Typically, the task is difficult, and only specific manipulations have worked to allow primates to overcome the reversed contingencies. This includes using symbolic stimuli, adding another layer to the story, and more value to the task itself as a measure perhaps of forms of cognitive control in other species. I will discuss some of these empirical results, including from other chimpanzees who were given variations of the task, and how these studies have influenced numerous areas within comparative cognitive science.

Qutest Construction and Psychometric Evaluation as Test of Attention and Willpower for Employee Selection Screening

Attention and willpower are some of the primary modalities for work, so it is necessary to evaluate those potentials. However, standard tests for assessing the two aspects, such as the Pauli or Kraepelin test, are bias-prone to numerical ability. Due to that concern, Qutest was designed as an attention and willpower (screening) test with symbolic stimulus adapted from the d2 test (Brickencamp, 1998). Two studies were conducted for Qutest psychometric properties evaluation. In the first study, 261 participants finished Qutest on a web-based platform with a maximum of 96 pages, each containing 24 symbols of key stimuli (a symbol Q with two dots) and distractors that had to complete in a maximum of 30 minutes. Analyses of internal consistency and correlation with Pauli test results were performed to establish test psychometric properties. The results supported adequate internal consistency and convergent validity claim for Qutest. In addition to internal consistency, a second study was conducted to develop further and evaluate parallel-form consistency between mobile and computer versions. In the second study, 371 participants completed a maximum of 192-page Qutest with a similar amount of time to the previous study. Participants took the mobile version first and then the computer versions of the test with a minimum of one lag day. Statistically significant correlation index of results across devices supported parallel-form reliability of both mobile and laptop/desktop Qutest version. A follow-up analysis of answering aids (mouse, trackpad, touch screen) for the computer version recommended using a mouse or touch screen instead of a trackpad due to statistically significant difference in performance among the three tools. Thus, Qutest can be used as a psychometrically adequate test and be flexible in various devices to assess attention and willpower for (prospective) employee screening.

Plain-Body Octopus's (Callistoctopus aspilosomatis) Learning about Objects via Both Visual and Tactile Sensory Inputs: A Pilot Study.

Although various recognizing abilities have been revealed for octopuses, they predominantly deal with only a few species. Therefore, cognition diversity among other octopus species that have been overlooked needs to be investigated. We investigated whether plain-body octopus can learn a symbolic stimulus, for the reason that this octopus is abundant around Okinawa Island with a complex coral community landscape. Attention was paid to whether an octopus can learn a stimulus based solely on visual information without previous experience of learning it tactilely as well as visually. Furthermore, we examined whether different sensory inputs affect learning in octopuses. First, we tested whether octopuses can be conditioned to three different stimuli (object, picture, and video of a white cross). Octopuses that were presented an object or a picture could learn to touch them. However, octopuses that were presented a video could not learn to touch the stimulus. Second, we showed a video to octopuses that had already learned about an object or a picture to investigate whether the octopuses, having experienced a target using visual and tactile senses, can recognize a video of the target based solely on visual information. Octopuses could learn to touch the video. When a conditioned stimulus and a novel stimulus were simultaneously presented on a computer screen, an octopus that had learned an object more often selected the conditioned stimulus when compared with an octopus that had experienced only a picture. These findings suggest that octopuses use multisensory information to recognize a specific object.

Roles of the Default Mode and Multiple-Demand Networks in Naturalistic versus Symbolic Decisions.

The default mode network (DMN) is often associated with representing semantic, social, and situational content of contexts and episodes. The DMN may therefore be important for contextual decision-making, through representing situational constraints and simulating common courses of events. Most decision-making paradigms, however, use symbolic stimuli and instead implicate cognitive control regions, such as the multiple demand (MD) system. This fMRI study aimed to contrast the brain mechanisms underlying decision-making based on rich naturalistic contexts or symbolic cues. While performing an ongoing task, 40 human participants (25 female) responded to different sounds. For one sound, the stimulus-response mapping was fixed; responses for the other sounds depended on the visual context: either lifelike scenes or letter symbols, varying across participants. Despite minimal behavioral differences between the groups, posterior DMN regions showed increased activity during context-dependent decision-making using the naturalistic scenes only, compared with symbolic cues. More anterior temporal and frontal DMN regions showed a different pattern, with sensitivity to the need for contextual control, but not to the type of context. Furthermore, in the scenes group, widespread DMN regions showed stronger representation of not just the context but also the sound whose significance it modulated. In comparison, the MD system showed strong univariate activity for every decision, but, intriguingly, somewhat reduced activity in the case of a scene-based but demanding context-dependent decision. Depending on context, we suggest, either DMN or MD regions may play a prominent role in selection and control of appropriate behavior.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Contextual knowledge is widely believed to be important for guiding real-world goal-directed behavior. Much remains to be understood, however, regarding the underlying brain mechanisms. Using a novel paradigm to contrast decisions based on richly meaningful naturalistic scenes with decisions based on symbolic cues, we find that both multiple demand regions and default mode regions may contribute to the cognitive control of behavior. Rich semantic context enhances representation not just of the context itself, but also of the contents of the decision that it controls. Dependence of a decision on naturalistic context can also reverse the common pattern of multiple demand regions responding more, and default mode regions responding less, to more difficult decisions.

On the Boundaries between Decision and Action: Effector-selective Lateralization of Beta-frequency Power Is Modulated by the Lexical Frequency of Printed Words.

Current computational and neuroscientific models of decision-making posit a discrete, serial processing distinction between upstream decisional stages and downstream processes of motor-response implementation. We investigated this framework in the context of two-alternative forced-choice tasks on linguistic stimuli, words and pseudowords. In two experiments, we assessed the impact of lexical frequency and action semantics on two effector-selective EEG indexes of motor-response activation: the lateralized readiness potential and the lateralization of beta-frequency power. This allowed us to track potentially continuous streams of processing progressively mapping the evaluation of linguistic stimuli onto corresponding response channels. Whereas action semantics showed no influence on EEG indexes of motor-response activation, lexical frequency affected the lateralization of response-locked beta-frequency power. We argue that these observations point toward a continuity between linguistic processing of word input stimuli and implementation of corresponding choice in terms of motor behavior. This interpretation challenges the commonly held assumption of a discrete processing distinction between decisional and motor-response processes in the context of decisions based on symbolic stimuli.

First fixation duration as a bottom-up measure during symbolic and non-symbolic numerical comparisons (La duración de la primera fijación como medida bottom-up al comparar cantidades simbólicas y no simbólicas)

ABSTRACT The ability to represent quantities, either in a symbolic or non-symbolic format, predicts calculation skills. Recording the saccades during gazing at these stimuli allows us to infer the cognitive processing taking place at that moment. The purpose of this research study was to analyse the duration of the first fixation during symbolic and non-symbolic numerical stimuli. We evaluated 32 university students through symbolic and non-symbolic number comparison tasks while recording their eye movements. In addition, they answered a calculation task. Participants spent more time looking first at the stimulus of greater magnitude during the execution of the comparison task (regardless of the presentation format). This measure was not a predictor of calculation skills. The duration of the first fixation was interpreted as a bottom-up measure during numerical stimuli perception, and therefore during the initial stage of cognitive processing.

Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS by Amy Carney

CARNEY, Amy – Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. Pp. 309. In August 1939, three weeks before Nazi Germany invaded Poland and started the Second World War, the official SS weekly Das Schwarze Korps (the black corps) published a generously illustrated two-page story about fatherhood titled “Is this unmanly?” In Nazi Germany, SS men embodied ultimate martial masculinity, and the article did not miss confirming conventional ideas about male and female roles. And yet it urged SS men to not shy away from assisting their wives with domestic duties, assuring its male readers that such undertakings would by no means call into question their manliness. Most importantly, the SS father-man should not worry about his manliness when it came to providing for his children, whether in private or in public. One of the several photographs accompanying the article showed a father bottle-feeding his baby. Another photo showed a uniformed SS officer pushing a baby carriage. Doing so was usually deemed unmanly. But the caption in this SS magazine advised the reader: “Uniform and baby carriage, both rescue the soldier” (pp. 55-56). As Amy Carney shows in her book Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS, this rather unconventional tutorial on manliness was part of Heinrich Himmler’s energetic efforts to secure the SS’s status as not only the social, political, martial, and racial aristocracy of Nazi Germany but also the spearhead of Nazi family policy. In Germany, just as in most other European countries, birth rates had declined, causing massive anxieties, especially in militaristic and chauvinistic states. German statisticians calculated that this development would lead to the complete extinction of its people within a few centuries. In Nazi Germany, the conjunction of the eugenics movement and scientific racism propelled an intense discourse on halting and reversing this decline. The members of the SS were chosen to model the return to the four-child family and thus secure the appropriate reproduction of the entire Volksgemeinschaft, or people’s community, the Nazis’ concept for a racially purified nation. The racially pure Volksgemeinschaft would eliminate Germany’s allegedly racially alien, especially Jewish, elements and at the same time boost a growing Aryan population, the reservoir for the warriors the Nazi empire needed to rule over Europe, the Lebensraum or living space in the East, and possibly other parts of the world. Carney analyzes the SS policies that served this goal, the implementation of these policies, and their eventual failure. Himmler’s “Engagement and Marriage Command” from 1931 laid the groundwork, ordering “every SS man who intends to marry … to obtain the marriage authorization of the Reichsführer SS,” that is, Himmler. Although the resulting complicated and thorough vetting processes required an increasingly inflated bureaucracy, Himmler still monitored it often himself. The marriage command served to control the racial purity of SS offspring. Beginning in 1933, a plethora of incentives served to increase it. These measures included significant monetary allowances for families (some $500 and more per month in today’s currency), a flood of ideological indoctrination and symbolic stimuli, such as wedding and birth ceremonies, and not least the not always open and yet not entirely clandestine encouragement of extramarital relationships. His own illegitimate children were testament to Himmler’s commitment. The SS Lebensborn project (literally “fountain of life”), the institution that supported unmarried mothers and illegitimate (but racially acceptable) children of SS men, however, was the most deliberate piece of the SS’s effort to neutralize traditional moral obstacles to the desired Aryan reproduction. The vetting process that the marriage command instigated left an especially rich archival trail, to the benefit of today’s historians. It includes SS orders and internal reports, petitions and letters of SS men, and related exhibits. In conjunction with a close reading of SS and NS periodicals such as Das Schwarze Korps, these materials enable Carney to draw a detailed picture of SS family policies as well as of the responses and coping strategies of individual SS members and their wives or mistresses. Results of the SS family policy were mixed, as Carney shows. On the one hand, conflicts with Himmler’s obsessively upheld racial standards...

The Effect of Symbolic Distancing on Delay Tolerance across the Preschool Period

ABSTRACTWe aimed to longitudinally examine how symbolic distancing affects preschool children’s delay tolerance in a delay choice task. We presented children with choices between a smaller immediate reward and a larger delayed reward in conditions with either symbolic stimuli or edible rewards. Overall, symbolic distancing modulated children’s delay tolerance. In particular, whereas in the first phase (T1: 3- and 4-year-olds) children presented with edible rewards chose the larger option more often than children presented with symbolic stimuli, in the second phase (T2: 5- and 6-year-olds), there was no significant difference between children presented with symbolic stimuli and those presented with edible rewards. These results are discussed by examining how children’s delay tolerance changes during the development and comparing children to adult humans in a similar task.

Comparing Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Number Lines: Consistent Effects of Notation Across Output Measures.

The mental number line (MNL) is a popular metaphor for magnitude representation in numerical cognition. Its shape has frequently been reported as being nonlinear, based on nonlinear response functions in magnitude estimation. We investigated whether this shape reflects a phenomenon of the mapping from stimulus to internal magnitude representation or of the mapping from internal representation to response. In five experiments, participants (total N = 66) viewed stimuli that represented numerical magnitude either in a symbolic notation (i.e., Arabic digits) or in a nonsymbolic notation (i.e., clouds of dots). Participants estimated these magnitudes by either adjusting the position of a mark on a ruler-like response bar (nonsymbolic response) or by typing the corresponding number on a keyboard (symbolic response). Responses to symbolic stimuli were markedly different from responses to nonsymbolic stimuli, in that they were mostly powershaped. We investigated whether the nonlinearity could be explained by effects of previous trials, but such effects were (a) not strong enough to explain the nonlinear responses and (b) existed only between trials of the same input notation, suggesting that the nonlinearity is due to input mappings. Introducing veridical feedback improved the accuracy of responses, thereby showing a calibration based on the feedback. However, this calibration persisted only temporarily, and responses to nonsymbolic stimuli remained nonlinear. Overall, we conclude that the nonlinearity is a phenomenon of the mapping from nonsymbolic input format to internal magnitude representation and that the phenomenon is surprisingly robust to calibration.

On the Difference Between Numerosity Processing and Number Processing.

The ANS theory on the processing of non-symbolic numerosities and the ANS mapping account on the processing of symbolic numbers have been the most popular theories on numerosity and number processing, respectively, in the last 20 years. Recently, both the ANS theory and the ANS mapping account have been questioned. In the current study, we examined two main assumptions of both the ANS theory and the ANS mapping account. ERPs were measured in 21 participants during four same-different match-to-sample tasks, involving non-symbolic stimuli, symbolic stimuli, or a combination of symbolic and non-symbolic stimuli (i.e., mapping tasks). We strictly controlled the visual features in the non-symbolic stimuli. Based on the ANS theory, one would expect an early distance effect for numerosity in the non-symbolic task. However, the results show no distance effect for numerosity. When analyzing the stimuli based on visual properties, an early distance effect for area subtended by the convex hull was found. This finding is in line with recent claims that the processing of non-symbolic stimuli may be dependent on the processing of visual properties instead of on numerosity (only). With regards to the processing of symbolic numbers, the ANS mapping account states that symbolic numbers are first mapped onto their non-symbolic representations before further processing, since the non-symbolic representation is at the basis of processing the symbolic number. If the non-symbolic format is the basic format of processing, one would expect that the processing of non-symbolic numerosities would not differ between purely non-symbolic tasks and mapping tasks, resulting in similar ERP waveforms for both tasks. Our results show that the processing of non-symbolic numerosities does differ between the tasks, indicating that processing of non-symbolic number is dependent on task format. This provides evidence against the ANS mapping account. Alternative theories for both the processing of non-symbolic numerosities and symbolic numbers are discussed.