Fischer Ursula, Huber Stefan, Nuerk Hans-Christoph, Cress Ulrike, Moeller Korbinian
Department of Sport Science, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
Thurgau University of Teacher Education, Kreuzlingen, Switzerland.
Front Psychol. 2018 Dec 18;9:2608. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02608. eCollection 2018.
According to theories of embodied numerosity, processing of numerical magnitude is anchored in bodily experiences. In particular, spatial representations of number interact with movement in physical space, but it is still unclear whether the extent of the movement is relevant for this interaction. In this study, we compared spatial-numerical associations over response movements of differing spatial expansion. We expected spatial-numerical effects to increase with the extent of physical response movements. In addition, we hypothesized that these effects should be influenced by whether or not a spatial representation of numbers was presented. Adult participants performed two tasks: a (comparing numbers to the fixed standard 5), from which we calculated the Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect; and a task (comparing two numbers against each other), from which we calculated a relative numerical congruity effect (NCE), which describes that when two relatively small numbers are compared, responses to the smaller number are faster than responses to the larger number; and vice versa for large numbers. A SNARC effect was observed across all conditions and was not influenced by response movement extent but increased when a number line was presented. In contrast, an NCE was only observed when no number line was presented. This suggests that the SNARC effect and the NCE reflect two different processes. The SNARC effect seems to represent a highly automated classification of numbers as large or small, which is further emphasized by the presentation of a number line. In contrast, the NCE likely results from participants not only classifying numbers as small or large, but also processing their relative size within the relevant section of their mental number line representation. An additional external presentation of a number line might interfere with this process, resulting in overall slower responses. This study follows up on previous spatial-numerical training studies and has implications for future spatial-numerical trainings. Specifically, similar studies with children showed contrasting results, in that response format but not number line presentation influenced spatial-numerical associations. Accordingly, during development, the relative relevance of physical experiences and presentation format for spatial-numerical associations might change.
根据具身数字理论，数字大小的处理基于身体体验。具体而言，数字的空间表征与物理空间中的运动相互作用，但运动的范围是否与这种相互作用相关仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们比较了不同空间扩展的反应运动中的空间-数字关联。我们预期空间-数字效应会随着物理反应运动的范围增加。此外，我们假设这些效应会受到数字空间表征是否呈现的影响。成年参与者执行两项任务：一项是（将数字与固定标准5进行比较），我们从中计算反应编码的空间数字关联（SNARC）效应；另一项是（相互比较两个数字）任务，我们从中计算相对数字一致性效应（NCE），该效应描述了在比较两个相对较小的数字时，对较小数字的反应比对较大数字的反应更快；对于较大数字则反之。在所有条件下均观察到SNARC效应，且不受反应运动范围的影响，但在呈现数字线时会增强。相比之下，仅在未呈现数字线时观察到NCE。这表明SNARC效应和NCE反映了两个不同的过程。SNARC效应似乎代表了一种将数字自动分类为大或小的高度自动化过程，数字线的呈现进一步强化了这一过程。相比之下，NCE可能是由于参与者不仅将数字分类为小或大，还在其心理数字线表征的相关部分内处理它们的相对大小。数字线的额外外部呈现可能会干扰这一过程，导致总体反应变慢。本研究跟进了先前的空间-数字训练研究，并对未来的空间-数字训练具有启示意义。具体而言，对儿童进行的类似研究显示了相反的结果，即反应格式而非数字线呈现影响了空间-数字关联。因此，在发展过程中，身体体验和呈现格式对空间-数字关联的相对相关性可能会发生变化。
