Cao Bihua, Su Zhenwei, Yi Fang, Li Fuhong
Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu city, China.
School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang city, China.
Psychol Res. 2024 Dec 5;89(1):32. doi: 10.1007/s00426-024-02052-6.
The spatial numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect demonstrates that people respond faster to small numbers with their left hand and faster to large numbers with their right hand. The size congruity effect (SCE) refers to the fact that congruent trials between numerical values and physical sizes are faster than incongruent trials. Previous studies have found that the SNARC effect and SCE are independent when magnitudes or sizes are processed explicitly. This study aimed to explore whether number, size, and space are common and distinct mechanisms using an implicit parity judgment task. The results showed that the SNARC effect, SCE, and SNARC-like effect all co-existed. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between the SNARC effect and SCE, in which the SNARC effect in the SCE-congruent condition was larger than in the SCE-incongruent condition, whereas SCE merely emerged in the SNARC-compatible trials. However, participants responded to small numbers in large size faster than to large numbers in small size with the left hand in SCE-incongruent trials, which reflected that number-space mapping (SNARC effect) was stronger than size-space mapping (SNARC-like effect). These findings provide new evidence for A Theory of Magnitude (ATOM), which suggests that number, size, and space are associated with a common generalized magnitude system through distinct mechanisms.
反应编码的空间数字关联（SNARC）效应表明，人们用左手对较小数字的反应更快，用右手对较大数字的反应更快。大小一致性效应（SCE）指的是数值与物理大小之间的一致性试验比不一致试验更快的这一事实。先前的研究发现，当明确处理数量或大小时，SNARC效应和SCE是相互独立的。本研究旨在使用内隐奇偶判断任务来探索数字、大小和空间是否是共同且不同的机制。结果表明，SNARC效应、SCE和类SNARC效应都同时存在。此外，SNARC效应和SCE之间存在显著的交互作用，其中在SCE一致条件下的SNARC效应大于SCE不一致条件下的SNARC效应，而SCE仅在SNARC兼容试验中出现。然而，在SCE不一致试验中，参与者用左手对大尺寸中的小数字的反应比对小尺寸中的大数字的反应更快，这反映出数字-空间映射（SNARC效应）比大小-空间映射（类SNARC效应）更强。这些发现为数量理论（ATOM）提供了新的证据，该理论表明数字、大小和空间通过不同的机制与一个共同的广义数量系统相关联。
