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ERIC Number: EJ859187
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Oct
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0010-0277
EISSN: N/A
Contextual Effects on Number-Time Interaction
Lu, Aitao; Hodges, Bert; Zhang, Jijia; Zhang, John X.
Cognition, v113 n1 p117-122 Oct 2009
Time perception has long been known to be affected by numerical representations. Recent studies further demonstrate that when participants estimate the duration of Arabic numbers, number magnitude, though task-irrelevant, biases duration judgment to produce underestimation for smaller numbers and overestimation for larger numbers. Such effects were found in the present study to be significantly reduced when a weight unit "gram" was suffixed to the numbers rendering the mental magnitude differences between different numbers less distinctive. The effects were enhanced when a different unit "kilogram" was suffixed to the numbers enlarging the perceived magnitude differences between different numbers. The results indicate that effects of number magnitude on duration estimation should not be attributed to the mathematical differences between numbers but to how the numbers are perceived to differ from each other in magnitude in specific contexts when they denote concrete items. The results also provide new evidence for the theoretical proposal of a common generalized magnitude system and indicate that the system must be extended to include other action-oriented magnitudes, such as weight. (Contains 1 figure.)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A