Zhu Rongjuan, Luo Yangmei, You Xuqun, Wang Ziyu
Key Laboratory for Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience of Shaanxi Province, School of Psychology, 12401 Shaanxi Normal University , Xi'an, China.
Perception. 2018 Feb;47(2):143-157. doi: 10.1177/0301006617738718. Epub 2017 Nov 13.
The associations between number and space have been intensively investigated. Recent studies indicated that this association could extend to more complex tasks, such as mental arithmetic. However, the mechanism of arithmetic-space associations in mental arithmetic was still a topic of debate. Thus, in the current study, we adopted an eye-tracking technology to investigate whether spatial bias induced by mental arithmetic was related with spatial attention shifts on the mental number line or with semantic link between the operator and space. In Experiment 1, participants moved their eyes to the corresponding response area according to the cues after solving addition and subtraction problems. The results showed that the participants moved their eyes faster to the leftward space after solving subtraction problems and faster to the right after solving addition problems. However, there was no spatial bias observed when the second operand was zero in the same time window, which indicated that the emergence of spatial bias may be associated with spatial attention shifts on the mental number line. In Experiment 2, participants responded to the operator (operation plus and operation minus) with their eyes. The results showed that mere presentation of operator did not cause spatial bias. Therefore, the arithmetic-space associations might be related with the movement along the mental number line.
数字与空间之间的关联已得到深入研究。近期研究表明，这种关联可能延伸至更复杂的任务，如心算。然而，心算中算术与空间关联的机制仍是一个有争议的话题。因此，在当前研究中，我们采用眼动追踪技术来探究心算引发的空间偏向是否与心理数字线上的空间注意转移有关，或者与运算符和空间之间的语义联系有关。在实验1中，参与者在解决加减法问题后根据提示将目光移至相应的反应区域。结果显示，参与者在解决减法问题后目光更快地移向左方空间，在解决加法问题后更快地移向右方空间。然而，在同一时间窗口内当第二个操作数为零时未观察到空间偏向，这表明空间偏向的出现可能与心理数字线上的空间注意转移有关。在实验2中，参与者用眼睛对运算符（加和减运算）做出反应。结果显示，仅呈现运算符不会导致空间偏向。因此，算术与空间的关联可能与沿心理数字线的移动有关。
