The greater of two multidigit integers could be chosen by (a) generating and comparing internal representations of the integers (holistic models), (b) sequentially comparing corresponding digits in the integers (sequential place-value models), or (c) simultaneously comparing corresponding digits (parallel place-value models).In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects chose the greater of 2 four-digit or 2 six-digit integers. As predicted by sequential place-value models, latencies did not depend on the number of unequal digits in the two numbers, and latencies increased linearly with the position of the leftmost unequal digits except when only the rightmost digits were unequal. In Experiment 3, latencies increased linearly for all positions when two letters were presented to the right of the integers. These results imply that multidigit integers are compared by sequentially comparing digits.

Paivio (1975) found that the latency to choose the larger of two named objects does not depend on congruity between the object sizes and the sizes of the object names. Because size congruity does affect latencies for pictorially presented objects, Paivio interpreted this result as support for the dual coding hypothesis. However, Experiment 1 demonstrated that Paivio's results were an artifact of his experimental design. Size congruity does affect latencies to choose the larger of two named objects when object pairs are not repeated. When the same object pairs are used repeatedly, as in Paivio's experiment, the effect disappears. In this case the response is probably remembered, so that the objects need not be compared. To determine the processing stages affected by size congruity, both the distance between stimulus sizes and the size congruity were manipulated in Experiment 2. Three groups of subjects chose either the greater Arabic digit, the greater named digit, or the larger named object. Size congruity interacted with distance only for Arabic digits. For both Arabic digits and named digits, the interference caused by size incongruity was greater than the facilitation caused by size congruity, whereas for object names, the facilitation was greater than the interference. A model of the interaction between physical size comparisons and conceptual size comparisons is proposed to account for these results.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract