Do people with different kinds of bodies think differently? According to the body-specificity hypothesis, people who interact with their physical environments in systematically different ways should form correspondingly different mental representations. In a test of this hypothesis, 5 experiments investigated links between handedness and the mental representation of abstract concepts with positive or negative valence (e.g., honesty, sadness, intelligence). Mappings from spatial location to emotional valence differed between right- and left-handed participants. Right-handers tended to associate rightward space with positive ideas and leftward space with negative ideas, but left-handers showed the opposite pattern, associating rightward space with negative ideas and leftward with positive ideas. These contrasting mental metaphors for valence cannot be attributed to linguistic experience, because idioms in English associate good with right but not with left. Rather, right- and left-handers implicitly associated positive valence more strongly with the side of space on which they could act more fluently with their dominant hands. These results support the body-specificity hypothesis and provide evidence for the perceptuomotor basis of even the most abstract ideas.

Embodiment of Abstract Concepts: Good and Bad in Right- and Left-Handers

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Embodiment of abstract concepts: good and bad in right- and left-handers.

An association of numbers and space (SNARC effect) has been examined in an ever growing literature. In the present quantitative meta-analysis, 46 studies with a total of 106 experiments and 2,206 participants were examined. Deeper number magnitude processing determined by task, stimulus and participants characteristics was associated with a stronger SNARC effect. In magnitude classification tasks the SNARC effect assumed consistently a categorical shape. Furthermore, the SNARC effect was found to increase with age from childhood to elderly age. No specific difference in the size of the SNARC effect was observed due to the explicit use of imagery strategies that could not be explained by increased reaction times. In general, these results corroborate the predictions by the dual-route model of the SNARC effect regarding the activation of number magnitude representation and suggest that automaticity may play a role in the development of the association of numbers and space across the lifespan. Key words: SNARC, mental number line, aging, imagery, meta-analysis In 1993, Dehaene, Bossini, and Giraux showed that small numbers (e.g., 0 or 1) were associated with faster left hand responses, and larger numbers (e.g., 8 or 9) with faster right hand responses (Figure 1A). This result held for single- (Experiment 1) as well as two-digit numbers (Experiment 2) and was not affected by whether participants were left-hand dominant (Experiment 5), or crossed their hands on the response buttons (Experiment 6). The effect did, however, depend on the relative magnitude of numbers in the stimulus set (Experiment 3) and was reduced in participants with right-to-left reading habits (Experiment 7). A similar spatial association was absent for letters (Experiment 4) but present when participants categorized number words (Experiments 8 and 9). Dehaene et al. (1993) concluded that numbers are systematically associated with space, and that this association reflects the orientation of a "mental number line". Specifically, the authors proposed that "...the representation of number magnitude is automatically accessed during parity judgment of Arabic digits. This representation may be linked to a mental number line [...], because it bears a natural and seemingly irrepressible correspondence with the natural left - right coordinates of external space. " (p. 394). Recently, Proctor and Cho (2006) proposed an alternative explanation for the SNARC effect based on polarity correspondence that contests the necessity of assuming the existence of a mental number line. The polarity correspondence account is a general theory of compatibility effects and does not require a spatially oriented mental number line to explain the SNARC effect. Proctor and Cho (2006) argue that the polarity assigned to each stimulus and response depends on the relative saliency of their dimensions. Instead of perceptual or conceptual similarity, the polarity categorization suffices to produce the mapping of stimuli onto responses. This account is based on the activation of positive or negative polarities for different dimensions and is applicable not only to the SNARC effect but also to non-numerical experimental set-ups. When the same polarity ("+" or "-") is assigned to different dimensions of the experimental set-up (e.g., stimuli and responses), they become associated. When applied to the domain of numerical processing, both "right" and "large" have polarity "+" while both "left" and "small" have polarity "-". When the polarities of stimulus and response overlap, a link is established regardless of perceptual, spatial or conceptual overlap, improving performance. Although the polarity correspondence account offers a parsimonious explanation for the SNARC effect in speeded binary classification tasks, some new evidence from cognitive neuropsychology lends support to the existence and relevance of a mental number line for the formation of spatial numerical associations (Zorzi et al. …

On the cognitive link between space and number: a meta-analysis of the SNARC effect

This study compared the spatial representation of numbers in three groups of adults: Canadians, who read both English words and Arabic numbers from left to right; Palestinians, who read Arabic words and Arabic-Indic numbers from right to left; and Israelis, who read Hebrew words from right to left but Arabic numbers from left to right. Canadians associated small numbers with left and large numbers with right space (the SNARC effect), Palestinians showed the reverse association, and Israelis had no reliable spatial association for numbers. These results suggest that reading habits for both words and numbers contribute to the spatial representation of numbers.

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Reading habits for both words and numbers contribute to the SNARC effect

http://www.unicog.org/publications/CohenKadoshLammertynIzard_NumberSpecial_ProgNeurobio08.pdf

Are numbers special? An overview of chronometric, neuroimaging, developmental and comparative studies of magnitude representation.

The current investigations coordinate math cognition and cultural approaches to numeric thinking to examine the linkages between numeric and spatial processes, and how these linkages are modified by the cultural artifact of writing. Previous research in the adult numeric cognition literature has shown that English monoliterates have a spatialised mental number line which is oriented from left-to-right with smaller magnitudes associated with the left side of space and larger magnitudes are associated with the right side of space. These associations between number and space have been termed the Spatial Numeric Association Response Code Effect (SNARC effect, Dehaene, 1992). The current study investigates the spatial orientation of the mental number line in the following groups: English monoliterates, Arabic monoliterates who use only the right-left writing system, Arabic-English biliterates, and illiterate Arabic speakers who only read numerals. Current results indicate, for the first time, a Reverse SNARC effect for Arabic monoliterates, such that the mental number line had a right-to-left directionality. Furthermore, a weakened Reverse SNARC was observed for Arabic-English biliterates, and no effect was observed among Illiterate Arabic speakers. These findings are especially notable since left-right biases are neurologically supported and are observed in pre-literate children regardless of which writing system is used by adults. The broader implications of how cultural artifacts affect basic numeric cognition will be discussed.

Linkages between Number Concepts, Spatial Thinking, and Directionality of Writing: The SNARC Effect and the REVERSE SNARC Effect in English and Arabic Monoliterates, Biliterates, and Illiterate Arabic Speakers.

Samar Zebian

Papers

Linkages between Number Concepts, Spatial Thinking, and Directionality of Writing: The SNARC Effect and the REVERSE SNARC Effect in English and Arabic Monoliterates, Biliterates, and Illiterate Arabic Speakers.