Spatial congruency between stimulus presentation and response key arrangements in arithmetic fact retrieval.

It is known that number and space representations are connected to one another in numerical and arithmetic abilities. Numbers are represented using the metaphor of a mental number line, oriented along horizontal and vertical space. This number line also seems to be linked to mental arithmetic, which is based partly on arithmetic fact retrieval. It seems that number representation and mental arithmetic are linked together. The present study tested the effect of spatial contextual congruency between stimulus presentation and response key arrangements in arithmetic fact retrieval, using number-matching and addition verification tasks. For both tasks in Experiment 1, a contextual congruency effect was present horizontally (i.e., horizontal presentation of stimuli and horizontal response key alignments) but not vertically (i.e., vertical presentation of stimuli but horizontal response key alignments). In Experiment 2, both tasks showed a contextual congruency effect for both spatial conditions. Experiment 1 showed that the interference and distance effects were found in the horizontal condition, probably because of the spatial congruency between stimulus presentation and response key arrangements. This spatial congruency could be related to the activation of the horizontal number line. Experiment 2 showed similar interference and distance effects for both spatial conditions, suggesting that the congruency between stimulus presentation and response alignment could facilitate the retrieval of arithmetic facts. This facilitation could be related to the activation of both horizontal and vertical number lines. The results are discussed in light of the possible role of a mental number line in arithmetic fact retrieval.