Mental movements without magnitude?: A study of spatial biases in symbolic arithmetic

Michal Pinhas; Martin H. Fischer

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2008.09.003

Mental movements without magnitude? A study of spatial biases in symbolic arithmetic

Michal Pinhas, Martin H. Fischer

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

144 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

McCrink (McCrink, Dehaene, & Dehaene-Lambertz (2007). Moving along the number line: Operational momentum in nonsymbolic arithmetic. Perception and Psychophysics, 69(8), 1324-1333) documented an "Operational Momentum" (OM) effect - overestimation of addition and underestimation of subtraction outcomes in non-symbolic (dot pattern) arithmetic. We investigated whether OM also occurs with Arabic number symbols. Participants pointed to number locations (1-9) on a visually given number line after computing them from addition or subtraction problems. Pointing was biased leftward after subtracting and rightward after adding, especially when the second operand was zero. The findings generalize OM to the spatial domain and to symbolic number processing. Alternative interpretations of our results are discussed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	408-415
Number of pages	8
Journal	Cognition
Volume	109
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.09.003
Publication status	Published - Dec 2008

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10.1016/j.cognition.2008.09.003

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title = "Mental movements without magnitude?: A study of spatial biases in symbolic arithmetic",

abstract = "McCrink (McCrink, Dehaene, & Dehaene-Lambertz (2007). Moving along the number line: Operational momentum in nonsymbolic arithmetic. Perception and Psychophysics, 69(8), 1324-1333) documented an {"}Operational Momentum{"} (OM) effect - overestimation of addition and underestimation of subtraction outcomes in non-symbolic (dot pattern) arithmetic. We investigated whether OM also occurs with Arabic number symbols. Participants pointed to number locations (1-9) on a visually given number line after computing them from addition or subtraction problems. Pointing was biased leftward after subtracting and rightward after adding, especially when the second operand was zero. The findings generalize OM to the spatial domain and to symbolic number processing. Alternative interpretations of our results are discussed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.",

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T2 - A study of spatial biases in symbolic arithmetic

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AU - Fischer, Martin H.

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N2 - McCrink (McCrink, Dehaene, & Dehaene-Lambertz (2007). Moving along the number line: Operational momentum in nonsymbolic arithmetic. Perception and Psychophysics, 69(8), 1324-1333) documented an "Operational Momentum" (OM) effect - overestimation of addition and underestimation of subtraction outcomes in non-symbolic (dot pattern) arithmetic. We investigated whether OM also occurs with Arabic number symbols. Participants pointed to number locations (1-9) on a visually given number line after computing them from addition or subtraction problems. Pointing was biased leftward after subtracting and rightward after adding, especially when the second operand was zero. The findings generalize OM to the spatial domain and to symbolic number processing. Alternative interpretations of our results are discussed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

AB - McCrink (McCrink, Dehaene, & Dehaene-Lambertz (2007). Moving along the number line: Operational momentum in nonsymbolic arithmetic. Perception and Psychophysics, 69(8), 1324-1333) documented an "Operational Momentum" (OM) effect - overestimation of addition and underestimation of subtraction outcomes in non-symbolic (dot pattern) arithmetic. We investigated whether OM also occurs with Arabic number symbols. Participants pointed to number locations (1-9) on a visually given number line after computing them from addition or subtraction problems. Pointing was biased leftward after subtracting and rightward after adding, especially when the second operand was zero. The findings generalize OM to the spatial domain and to symbolic number processing. Alternative interpretations of our results are discussed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2008.09.003

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SN - 0010-0277

VL - 109

SP - 408

EP - 415

JO - Cognition

JF - Cognition

IS - 3

ER -

Mental movements without magnitude? A study of spatial biases in symbolic arithmetic

Abstract

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