A cross-cultural comparison of finger-based and symbolic number representations.

The current study examined predictions from embodied cognition for effects of finger counting on number processing. Although finger counting is spontaneous and nearly universal, counting habits reflect learning and culture. European cultures use a sub-base-five system, requiring a full hand plus additional fingers to express numbers exceeding 5. Chinese culture requires only one hand to express such numbers. We investigated the differential impact of early-acquired finger-based number representations on adult symbolic number processing. In total, 53 European and 56 Chinese adults performed two versions of the magnitude classification task, where numbers were presented either as Arabic symbols or as finger configurations consistent with respective cultural finger-counting habits. Participants classified numbers as smaller/larger than 5 with horizontally aligned buttons. Finger-based size and distance effects were larger in Chinese compared with Europeans. These differences did not, however, induce reliably different symbol processing signatures. This dissociation challenges the idea that sensory and motor habits shape our conceptual representations and implies notation-specific processing patterns.

How does language affect spatial attention? Deconstructing the prime-target relationship.

It is still unclear how spatially associated concepts (e.g., directional expressions, object names, metaphors) shape our cognitive experience. Here, two experiments (N = 156) investigated the mechanisms by which words with either explicit or implicit spatial meaning induce spatial attention shifts. Participants performed a visual target-discrimination task according to response rules that required different degrees of prime and target processing depth. For explicit prime words, we found spatial congruency effects independent of processing depth, while implicit prime words generated congruency effects only when participants had to compute the congruency relationship. These results were robust across different prime-target intervals and imply that spatial connotations alone do not automatically activate spatial attention shifts. Instead, explicit semantic analysis is a prerequisite for conceptual cueing.

Concrete constraints on abstract concepts-editorial.

This special issue, "Concrete constraints of abstract concepts", addresses the role of concrete determinants, both external and internal to the human body, in acquisition, processing and use of abstract concepts while at the same time presenting to the readers an overview of methods used to assess their representation.

Abstract concepts: external influences, internal constraints, and methodological issues.

There is a longstanding and widely held misconception about the relative remoteness of abstract concepts from concrete experiences. This review examines the current evidence for external influences and internal constraints on the processing, representation, and use of abstract concepts, like truth, friendship, and number. We highlight the theoretical benefit of distinguishing between grounded and embodied cognition and then ask which roles do perception, action, language, and social interaction play in acquiring, representing and using abstract concepts. By reviewing several studies, we show that they are, against the accepted definition, not detached from perception and action. Focussing on magnitude-related concepts, we also discuss evidence for cultural influences on abstract knowledge and explore how internal processes such as inner speech, metacognition, and inner bodily signals (interoception) influence the acquisition and retrieval of abstract knowledge. Finally, we discuss some methodological developments. Specifically, we focus on the importance of studies that investigate the time course of conceptual processing and we argue that, because of the paramount role of sociality for abstract concepts, new methods are necessary to study concepts in interactive situations. We conclude that bodily, linguistic, and social constraints provide important theoretical limitations for our theories of conceptual knowledge.

Grounding (fairly) complex numerical knowledge: an educational example.

In this article, we contextualize and discuss an on-line contribution to this special issue in which a video-recorded lecture demonstrates the teaching of an abstract mathematical concept, namely regression to the mean. We first motivate the pertinence of this example from the perspective of embodied cognition. Then, we identify mechanisms of teaching that reflect embodied cognitive practices, such as the concreteness fading approach. Rather than a comprehensive review of multiple extensive literatures, this article provides the interested reader with several sources or entries into those literatures.

Systematic spatial distortion of quantitative estimates.

Magnitude estimation has been studied since the beginnings of scientific psychology and constitutes a fundamental aspect of human behavior. Yet, it has apparently never been noticed that estimates depend on the spatial arrangement used. We tested 167 adults in three experiments to show that the spatial layout of stimuli and responses systematically distorts number estimation, length production, and weight reproduction performance. The direction of distortion depends on the observer's counting habits, but does not seem to reflect the use of spatially associated number concepts. Our results imply that all quantitative estimates are contaminated by a "spell of space" whenever stimuli or responses are spatially distributed.

Task instructions modulate unit-decade binding in two-digit number representation.

Previous studies have found decomposed processes, as well as holistic processes, in the representation of two-digit numbers. The present study investigated the influence of task instruction on such processes. Participants completed both magnitude and parity tasks in one of three instructional conditions, where they were asked to either consider two-digit numbers as a whole or to focus on one specific digit. In two experiments, we found that when participants were asked to consider the two digits as an integrated number, they always exhibited a unit-decade compatibility effect, indicating a failure of selective attention on the digit relevant to the given task. However, the mere presence of the neighboring digit is not a sufficient condition for the compatibility effect: when participants were explicitly asked to process a specific digit, their success/failure to selectively ignore the irrelevant digit depended on task requirements. Further, computer mouse tracking indicated that the locus of the compatibility effect was related to late response-related processing. The results signify the deep involvement of top-down processes in unit-decade binding for two-digit number representation.

The Early Construction of Spatial Attention: Culture, Space, and Gesture in Parent-Child Interactions.

American and Israeli toddler-caregiver dyads (mean age of toddler = 26 months) were presented with naturalistic tasks in which they must watch a short video (N = 97) or concoct a visual story together (N = 66). English-speaking American caregivers were more likely to use left to right spatial structuring than right to left, especially for well-ordered letters and numbers. Hebrew-speaking Israeli parents were more likely than Americans to use right to left spatial structuring, especially for letters. When constructing a pictorial narrative for their children, Americans were more likely to place pictures from left to right than Israelis. These spatial structure biases exhibited by caregivers are a potential route for the development of spatial biases in early childhood, before children have developed automatic reading and writing habits.

Observation of directional storybook reading influences young children's counting direction.

Even before formal schooling, children map numbers onto space in a directional manner. The origin of this preliterate spatial-numerical association is still debated. We investigated the role of enculturation for shaping the directionality of the association between numbers and space, focusing on counting behavior in 3- to 5-year-old preliterate children. Two studies provide evidence that, after observing reading from storybooks (left-to-right or right-to-left reading) children change their counting direction in line with the direction of observed reading. Just observing visuospatial directional movements had no such effect on counting direction. Complementarily, we document that book illustrations, prevalent in children's cultures, exhibit directionality that conforms to the direction of a culture's written language. We propose that shared book reading activates spatiotemporal representations of order in young children, which in turn affect their spatial representation of numbers.

Measuring spatial-numerical associations: evidence for a purely conceptual link.

Previous work on spatial-numerical association (SNAs) included either spatially distributed stimuli or responses. This raises the possibility that the inferred spatial nature of number concepts was a methodological artifact. We present results from a novel task that involves two categories (spatially oriented objects and number magnitudes) and dissociates spatial classification from number classification. The results reveal SNAs without inferential limitations of previous work and point to a working memory mechanism that transfers spatial coding across categories.

SNARC for numerosities is modulated by comparative instruction (and resembles some non-numerical effects).

The spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect is observed for both numerical (Arabic digits) and non-numerical stimuli (size, duration, height). However, in a context of comparative judgment, Arabic numbers are mapped onto space differently from sizes and heights: SNARC for Arabic digits is formed consistently in a certain cultural reading direction, whereas SNARC for sizes and heights is additionally modulated by comparative instruction (it reverses when participants choose larger magnitudes). In the present study, we test whether the spatial characteristic of magnitude processing revealed in a context of comparison is determined by a presence or lack of numerical content of the processed information, or it depends on specific directional experience (e.g., left-to-right ordering) associated with the processed magnitude format. We examine the SNARC effect with the pairwise comparison design, by using non-symbolic numerical stimuli (objects' collections), for which the left-to-right spatial structure is not as exceedingly overlearned as for Arabic numbers. We asked participants from two reading cultures (left-to-right vs. mixed reading culture) to compare numerosities of two sets, choosing either a larger or smaller one. SNARC emerged in both groups. Additionally, it was modulated by comparative instruction: It appeared in a left-to-right direction when participants selected a smaller set, but it tended to reverse when participants selected a larger set. We conclude that spatial processing of numerosities is dissociated from spatial processing of Arabic numbers, at least in a context of comparative judgment. This dissociation could reflect differences in spatial ordering experience specific to a certain numerical input.

Which numbers do you have in mind? Number generation is influenced by reading direction.

In Western participants, small numbers are associated with left and larger numbers with right space. A biological account proposes that brain asymmetries lead to these attentional asymmetries in number space. In contrast, a cultural account proposes that the direction of this association is shaped by reading direction. We explored whether number generation is influenced by reading direction in participants from a left-to-right (UK) and a right-to-left (Arab) reading culture. Participants generated numbers randomly while lying on their left and right side. The mean number generated by participants from a left-to-right reading culture was smaller when they lay on their left than on their right side, and the opposite was found for participants from a right-to-left reading culture. Asymmetries in number space observed in number generation are more compatible with a cultural than biological account.

Random walks on the mental number line.

The direction of influence between conceptual and motor activation, and its relevance for real-life activities, is still unclear. Here, we use the frequently reported association between small/large numbers and left/right space to investigate this issue during walking. We asked healthy adults to generate random numbers as they made lateral turns and found that (1) lateral turn decisions are predicted by the last few numbers generated prior to turning; (2) the intention to turn left/right makes small/large numbers more accessible; and (3) magnitude but not order of auditorily presented numbers influences the listener's turn selection. Our findings document a bidirectional influence between conceptual and motor activation and point to a hierarchically organized conceptual-motor activation.

Culturally-Driven Biases in Preschoolers' Spatial Search Strategies for Ordinal and Non-Ordinal Dimensions.

Culturally-driven spatial biases affect the way people interact with and think about the world. We examine the ways in which spatial presentation of stimuli affects learning and memory in preschool-aged children in the USA and Israel. In Experiment 1, preschoolers in both cultures were given a spatial search task in which they were asked to utilize verbal labels (letters of the alphabet) to match the hiding locations of two monkeys. The labels were taught to the children in either a left-to-right or right-to-left fashion to assess whether performance on this task is affected by directionality of labeling. English-speaking children performed better on the spatial search task when locations were labeled in a left-to-right fashion, while Hebrew-speaking children exhibited higher performance when labels were taught in a right-to-left fashion. In Experiment 2, English-speaking preschoolers were given a modified task in which the verbal label was a non-ordinal stimulus type (colors). These children showed no subsequent advantage on the task for spatial presentations which were culturally-consistent (left-to-right) relative to culturally-inconsistent (right-to-left). These findings support the hypothesis that culturally-consistent spatial layout improves learning and memory, and that this benefit is reduced or absent when information lacks ordinal properties.

How do numbers shift spatial attention? Both processing depth and counting habits matter.

There have been inconsistent reports about whether seeing small versus large numbers (e.g., 1 or 2 vs. 8 or 9) automatically shifts an observer's attention into left versus right hemispace. We report four visual detection experiments (N = 162) where centrally presented uninformative number cues were followed by lateralized targets that required go/no-go responses. Processing depth was manipulated by requiring observers to either distinguish numbers from other symbols (Experiment 1) or to classify numbers by either parity (Experiment 2) or magnitude (Experiments 3 and 4). Attention shifts occurred only after magnitude processing. Importantly, their direction depended on observers' directional preferences for object counting, which was separately assessed in all experiments. These results clarify the mechanism by which abstract concepts activate their inherent spatial associations and lead to spatial attention shifts. They also demonstrate the feasibility of attentional probing to study mechanisms of symbol comprehension in various contexts, ranging from mental arithmetic to language processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Distance in depth: A comparison of explicit and implicit numerical distances in the horizontal and radial dimensions.

Numbers are a constant presence in our daily lives: A brain devoid of the ability to process numbers would not be functional in its external environment. Comparing numerical magnitudes is a fundamental ability that requires the processing of numerical distances. From magnitude comparison tasks, a comparison distance effect (DE) emerges: It describes better performance when comparing numerically distant rather than close numbers. Unlike other signatures of number processing, the comparison DE has been assessed only implicitly, with numerical distance as nonsalient task property. Different assessments permit identification of different cognitive processes underlying a specific effect. To investigate whether explicit and implicit assessment of the comparison DE influences numerical cognition differently, we introduced the distance classification task, involving explicit classification of numbers as close or far from a reference. N = 93 healthy adults classified numbers either by magnitude or by numerical distance. To investigate associations between numerical and physical distance, response buttons were positioned horizontally (Experiment 1) or radially (Experiment 2). In both experiments, there was an advantage for both the closest and farthest numbers with respect to the reference during distance classification, but not during magnitude classification. In Experiment 2, numerically close/far numbers were classified faster with the close/far response button, respectively, suggesting radial correspondence between physical and representational distances. These findings provide new theoretical and methodological insights into the mental representation of numbers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Language directs spatial attention differently in explicit and implicit tasks.

How do words with either explicit or implicit spatial meanings (e.g., DOWN, BOOT) shift our attention? Recent studies, presenting prime words followed by probe targets, suggested that, for implicit spatial words, both the spatial meaning of prime words and the target locations must be processed to induce congruency benefits. Here we examined the functional necessity of the latter location component. 91 healthy adults discriminated target letters that followed explicit or implicit spatial words. Words either did or did not have to be semantically processed. Target discrimination speed was used to compute congruency benefits. With explicit prime words, spatial congruency effects emerged without semantic processing instructions. In contrast, with implicit prime words, only instructing their semantic processing ensured a congruency benefit. This shows that, for implicit spatial words, spatial processing of target locations is not necessary; instead, processing the spatial connotation of the prime, together with the identity of the target, can induce congruency benefits. Our results help to understand previous conflicting findings.

Ordinality and Verbal Framing Influence Preschoolers' Memory for Spatial Structure.

During the preschool years, children are simultaneously undergoing a reshaping of their mental number line and becoming increasingly sensitive to the social norms expressed by those around them. In the current study, 4- and 5-year-old American and Israeli children were given a task in which an experimenter laid out chips with numbers (1-5), letters (A-E), or colors (Red-Blue, the first colors of the rainbow), and presented them with a specific order (initial through final) and direction (Left-to-right or Right-to-left). The experimenter either did not demonstrate the laying out of the chips (Control), emphasized the process of the left-to-right or right-to-left spatial layout (Process), or used general goal language (Generic). Children were then asked to recreate each sequence after a short delay. Children also completed a short numeracy task. The results indicate that attention to the spatial structuring of the environment was influenced by conventional framing; children exhibited better recall when the manner of layout was emphasized than when it was not. Both American and Israeli children were better able to recall numerical information relative to non-numerical information. Although children did not show an overall benefit for better recall of information related to the culture's dominant spatial direction, American children's tendency to recall numerical direction information predicted their early numeracy ability.