Saltar al contenido | Saltar al meú principal | Saltar a la secciones

ESCOP 2011, 17th MEETING OF THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 29th Sep. - 02nd Oct.

Numerical cognition

Saturday, October 01st,   2011 [17:20 - 19:20]

PS_2.065 - Magnitude representation and spatial-numerical associations in 6 to 8 year-old children

Szucs, D. 1 , White, S. 2 & Soltesz, F. 1

1 University of Cambridge, Department of Experimental Psychology, Cambridge, UK
2 Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

We examined the integration of magnitude and spatial information with symbolic number notation in 6, 7 and 8 year-old children. Study 1 used event-related brain potentials to determine the speed of access to magnitude information from Arabic digits in a situation when number meaning was not relevant. All age groups accessed magnitude information with similar speed. This suggests that access to basic magnitude information was mature very early during schooling. Study 2 took a step further and examined not only automatic access to magnitude but also automatic access to spatial information from symbolic digits within the same sample of children. Previous research has separately investigated the development of these components. However, developmental trajectories of symbolic number knowledge cannot be fully understood when considering components in isolation. The numerical Stroop paradigm demonstrated automatic access to magnitude from Year 1. Additionally, a parity judgment task where number meaning was again, irrelevant, showed that the onset of the Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect occurs from 8 years of age (Year 2 of school). These findings uncover the developmental timeline of the integration of magnitude and spatial information during the early learning of Arabic digits in normally developing children.




PS_2.066 - Numerosity, area surface, duration magnitude processing: No evidence for a shared mechanism in children

Mussolin, C. 1 , Hoffmann, D. 2 , Schiltz, C. 2 , Leybaert, J. 1 & Content, A. 1

1 Laboratoire Cognition, Langage et Développement, Université libre de Bruxelles, avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
2 Educational Measurements and Applied Cognitive Science Department, University of Luxembourg, L-7201 Luxembourg

Numerosity, area surface, and duration are fundamental information along which living species perceive and represent the world. Whether these dimensions are subtended by a common system of quantities is still open. Here we found no evidence for such a link in children aged from 4 to 7 years. Kindergartners and first grade children were presented with two successive sets of wagons one to the left and one to the right of the screen. Depending on the task, they had to judge either the numerosity (selecting the train with the more numerous wagons), the area surface (selecting the longest train), or the duration (selecting the train which “drives” for the longest time) by pressing the corresponding left or right button on a two-key pad. The ratio between the two members of each pair was manipulated for the relevant dimension. Participants successively performed the different ratios until accuracy felt below 70 percents. Performance on numerosity judgment was not correlated with performance on the two other judgments. The analysis of the highest ratio obtained by each child and the Weber fraction computed across all ratios indicated a finer representation for numerosity than area surface and duration in both kindergartners and first grade children.




PS_2.067 - Reverse SNARC in left-to-right readers

Patro, K. 1 & Cipora, K. 2

1 Faculty of Psychology. University of Warsaw. Warsaw, Poland.
2 Institute of Psychology. Jagiellonian University. Cracow, Poland.

The aim of presented study was to assess the extent to which the SNARC effect (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes) may be accounted for by activating left-to-right scanning and numerical sequences. We hypothesized that reading of task instructions (activating left-to-right scanning) and processing of Arabic numbers (e.g. parity judgment or magnitude classification) within the task activate culturally determined left-to-right mapping. We examine whether SNARC occurs when Arabic number stimuli are excluded and direction of eye movements is being manipulated. In Experiment 1, left-to-right reading participants were orally instructed to determine the color of elements in a set by pressing left or right button. Sets (with equated total surface of elements) varied in numerosity. Reverse SNARC was observed - responses to small sets were facilitated on right hand side and to large on left hand side. In Experiment 2, apart from oral instruction, a ball moving from left to right was presented (thus evoking eye movements similar to those while reading), and no SNARC was found. These results suggest that reading-related left-to-right scanning may inhibit before-existing reverse SNARC. In Experiment 3, we investigate the pattern of the SNARC effect while right-to-left eye movements are evoked. The data are being analyzed.




PS_2.068 - The influence of spatial attention on exact and approximate arithmetic

Seyll, L. & Content, A.

LCLD, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

In two experiments, we assessed the intervention of visuo-spatial attention during the resolution of two forms of mental addition: exact calculation (e.g., 56 + 23 = 79) and approximate calculation (e.g., 56 + 23 is about 80). Participants had to memorize the left or right position of a cue before responding verbally to two-digits addition problems. The allocation of attention to one side of the visual field influenced the resolution of approximate additions but not the resolution of exact additions. This influence resulted in the facilitation of addition problems with a larger second operand (between 30 and 49) following the presentation of a right cue and conversely the facilitation of addition problems with a smaller second operand (between 10 and 29) following the presentation of a left cue. These findings can be interpreted as being the consequence of dynamic shifts on a spatially organized mental representation of numbers in the case of approximate addition. Conversely, exact mental arithmetic would rather entail language and complex calculation strategies involving working memory, which might hide or erase the influence of visuo-spatial attention.




PS_2.069 - Spatial coding of object size: evidence for a stimulus size-response position correspondence effect

Treccani, B. 1 , Sellaro, R. 2 , Job, R. 1 & Cubelli, R. 1, 2

1 DiSCoF. University of Trento. Rovereto (TN), Italy
2 CIMeC. University of Trento. Rovereto (TN), Italy

Left-to-right readers tend to react faster to small numbers when a left response is required and to larger numbers when a right response is required. This effect (i.e., the SNARC effect) is attributed to the automatic activation of spatial representations of number magnitudes, which interact with response-position codes. In particular, the SNARC effect suggests that numbers are spatially represented on a mental number line, which is oriented from left to right. The present study aimed at investigating whether the typical size of objects, as with number magnitude, is automatically represented, even if it is irrelevant to the task, and whether this representation is spatial in nature. Participants were asked to classify a centrally-presented picture as belonging to either the category of living or non-living entities, by pressing a left- or right-side key. Left responses were faster when the picture depicted a small object (e.g. an ant), whereas right responses were faster in the case of large objects (e.g. an elephant). These results indicate that the information about object typical size is automatically activated and suggest that this information is spatially coded: small objects are represented on the left and large objects on the right.




PS_2.070 - Comparability of the numerical distance effect between tasks

Smets, K. , Gebuis, T. & Reynvoet, B.

University of Leuven

Non-symbolic quantities are represented with overlap between numerically close quantities. This overlap underlies the so-called ‘distance effect’, which is assumed to be a measure of numeric processing and is suggested to relate to mathematical performance. Adult participants are usually tested with comparison or same-different tasks. Recently, some doubt has been casted on whether these tasks are comparable and whether the distance effects derived from the tasks all originate at the same level. In the current study, comparison and same-different tasks were contrasted on a behavioral and a neural level. Careful precautions were taken to ensure that participants were not able to rely on visual cues which are associated with number while doing the task. On a behavioral level (i.e., reaction times), the correlation between the comparison distance effect and the same-different distance effect did not reach significance. The neural results obtained with electroencephalography were in the same line as the behavioral data. This seems to indicate a different origin for both distance effects which suggests that comparison and same-different tasks may not be entirely comparable.




©2010 BCBL. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language. All rights reserved. Tel: +34 943 309 300 | Fax: +34 943 309 052