Numerosity is represented spatially: evidence from a 'SNARC' task M Yates1, F Nemeh1, T Loetscher2, A Ma-Wyatt3, M E Nicholls2 |
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1School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia |
| A central finding within numerical cognition is that symbolic numbers (i.e. Arabic numerals) are represented spatially with smaller numbers associated with the left side of space and larger numbers with the right [e.g. Fischer et al, 2003, Nature Neuroscience, 6(6), 555-556]. This study investigated whether numerosity is 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 (or more) dots than the reference would be categorized more quickly when ‘less’ responses were assigned to the left hand and ‘more’ responses to the right hand compared to the other way around (the so-called ‘SNARC’ effect - Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes). This effect was observed, but it may have been because numerosity per se is represented spatially, or because total dot surface area - which co-varied with numerosity in this experiment– is represented spatially. To distinguish 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, indicating that numerosity is represented spatially. |
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