Heed the Signs: Operation Signs have Spatial Associations

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology - Tập 67 Số 8 - Trang 1527-1540 - 2014
Michal Pinhas1, Samuel Shaki2, Martin H. Fischer3
1Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
2Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel
3Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

Tóm tắt

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.

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Thông tin xuất bản

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Tập 67 Số 8

1527-1540

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