TY - JOUR
T1 - Heed the signs
T2 - Operation signs have spatial associations
AU - Pinhas, Michal
AU - Shaki, Samuel
AU - Fischer, Martin H.
N1 - Funding Information:
Correspondence should be addressed to Michal Pinhas, Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel. E-mail: [email protected] We thank Gavin Revie and Clare Kirtley for their help with data collection. M.P. was supported by a Visiting Researcher’s Grant from the UK’s Experimental Psychology Society. M.H.F. was supported by the British Academy [grant number SG 46947] while working at the University of Dundee.
PY - 2014/8
Y1 - 2014/8
N2 - Mental arithmetic shows systematic spatial biases. The association between numbers and space is well documented, but it is unknown whether arithmetic operation signs also have spatial associations and whether or not they contribute to spatial biases found in arithmetic. Adult participants classified plus and minus signs with left and right button presses under two counterbalanced response rules. Results from two experiments showed that spatially congruent responses (i.e., right-side responses for the plus sign and left-side responses for the minus sign) were responded to faster than spatially incongruent ones (i.e., left-side responses for the plus sign and right-side responses for the minus sign). We also report correlations between this novel operation sign spatial association (OSSA) effect and other spatial biases in number processing. In a control experiment with no explicit processing requirements for the operation signs there were no sign-related spatial biases. Overall, the results suggest that (a) arithmetic operation signs can evoke spatial associations (OSSA), (b) experience with arithmetic operations probably underlies the OSSA, and (c) the OSSA only partially contributes to spatial biases in arithmetic.
AB - Mental arithmetic shows systematic spatial biases. The association between numbers and space is well documented, but it is unknown whether arithmetic operation signs also have spatial associations and whether or not they contribute to spatial biases found in arithmetic. Adult participants classified plus and minus signs with left and right button presses under two counterbalanced response rules. Results from two experiments showed that spatially congruent responses (i.e., right-side responses for the plus sign and left-side responses for the minus sign) were responded to faster than spatially incongruent ones (i.e., left-side responses for the plus sign and right-side responses for the minus sign). We also report correlations between this novel operation sign spatial association (OSSA) effect and other spatial biases in number processing. In a control experiment with no explicit processing requirements for the operation signs there were no sign-related spatial biases. Overall, the results suggest that (a) arithmetic operation signs can evoke spatial associations (OSSA), (b) experience with arithmetic operations probably underlies the OSSA, and (c) the OSSA only partially contributes to spatial biases in arithmetic.
KW - Mental arithmetic
KW - Mental number line
KW - Operational momentum
KW - Pointing
KW - Spatial-numerical association of response codes effect
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84904575035&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17470218.2014.892516
DO - 10.1080/17470218.2014.892516
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C2 - 24547790
AN - SCOPUS:84904575035
SN - 1747-0218
VL - 67
SP - 1527
EP - 1540
JO - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
JF - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
IS - 8
ER -