Department of Psychology and the Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
Conscious Cogn. 2012 Mar;21(1):444-50. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2011.12.006. Epub 2012 Jan 5.
It is widely agreed that irrelevant numerical values are automatically activated. However, automatic and intentional activations may give rise to different numerical representations. We examined processing of symbolic and non-symbolic (i.e., numerosity) representations asking whether they differ in automatic and intentional processing. Participants were presented with two-dimensional displays containing repetitions of a digit and were asked to report, in different blocks, whether the digit or numerosity was smaller or larger than 5. Incongruent trials differed either in laterality between the relevant and irrelevant dimensions (i.e., the location of both dimensions in reference to the midpoint 5) or in numerical distance between dimensions. Congruency affected performance regardless of symbolic or non-symbolic presentation. For incongruent trials, laterality (not distance) affected performance, again regardless of presentation. This implies that automaticity does not mean similar processing of relevant and irrelevant dimensions. Specifically, the relevant dimension is processed elaborately whereas the irrelevant dimension is processed crudely.
人们普遍认为，不相关的数值会自动激活。然而，自动和有意的激活可能会产生不同的数值表示。我们研究了符号和非符号（即数量）表示的处理，以确定它们在自动和有意处理方面是否存在差异。参与者观看包含数字重复的二维显示，并在不同的块中报告数字或数量是否小于 5。不一致的试验在相关和不相关维度之间的侧偏（即两个维度相对于中点 5 的位置）或维度之间的数值距离上存在差异。一致性无论符号或非符号呈现如何都会影响表现。对于不一致的试验，侧偏（而非距离）影响表现，再次无论呈现如何。这意味着自动性并不意味着对相关和不相关维度的相似处理。具体来说，相关维度经过精心处理，而无关维度则粗略处理。
