INSERM, CEA, Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Orsay, France.
Cogn Neuropsychol. 2006 Dec 1;23(8):1162-73. doi: 10.1080/02643290600780080.
There is a universal and often unconscious tendency to mentally associate the number sequence with a spatial continuum (the mental number line). Here we study one individual who reports a strong and vivid sense of space when processing numbers. For him, the number sequence has a precise spatial form: a curvilinear right-to-left oriented line. We used various tasks to demonstrate that this numerical-spatial association is not a mere figment of his imagination, but a constrained experiential phenomenon consistent across sessions and automatically triggered by the visual presentation of numbers. We also show that this idiosyncratic representation can coexist with another implicit association, the SNARC effect (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes, where small numbers are associated with the left side of space). This effect is present in individuals without explicit number forms and is not affected in the present subject in spite of his reversed subjective representation.
有一种普遍且常常是无意识的倾向，即将数字序列与空间连续统（心理数字线）在心理上联系起来。在这里，我们研究了一位在处理数字时报告强烈而生动的空间感的个体。对他来说，数字序列具有精确的空间形式：一条从右到左的曲线。我们使用各种任务来证明这种数字-空间的关联不是他想象的产物，而是一种经验现象，在不同的会话中是一致的，并且会自动由数字的视觉呈现触发。我们还表明，这种特殊的表示可以与另一种隐含的关联，即 SNARC 效应（空间-数字反应代码关联，其中小数字与空间的左侧相关联）共存。这种效应存在于没有明确数字形式的个体中，并且尽管本主题中的个体具有反转的主观表示，但不受其影响。
