ERIC Number: EJ781864
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2008-Feb
Pages: 10
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0010-0277
EISSN: N/A
Visuospatial Priming of the Mental Number Line
Stoianov, Ivilin; Kramer, Peter; Umilta, Carlo; Zorzi, Marco
Cognition, v106 n2 p770-779 Feb 2008
It has been argued that numbers are spatially organized along a "mental number line" that facilitates left-hand responses to small numbers, and right-hand responses to large numbers. We hypothesized that whenever the representations of visual and numerical space are concurrently activated, interactions can occur between them, before response selection. A spatial prime is processed faster than a numerical target, and consistent with our hypothesis, we found that such a spatial prime affects non-spatial, verbal responses more when the prime follows a numerical target (backward priming) then when it precedes it (forward priming). This finding emerged both in a number-comparison and a parity judgment task, and cannot be ascribed to a "Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes" (SNARC). Contrary to some earlier claims, we therefore conclude that visuospatial-numerical interactions do occur, even before response selection.
Descriptors: Numbers, Cognitive Processes, Visual Stimuli, Spatial Ability, Cues, Task Analysis, Responses
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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