Comparisons of digits and dot patterns.

Abstract

The process of numeric comparison was investigated. Four groups of 10 5s were asked to judge which of two digits or which of two dot patterns was numerically larger. Stimuli were either digits or dot patterns in familiar, unfamiliar, or random configurations. Mean reaction time was systematically related to the difference between logarithms of the stimulus values. A single numeric comparison process gave good account of the data for all Stimulus types. This process was well described by a random walk model with variable step size and fixed boundaries. Reaction time matrices were further analyzed using Kruskal's 1964 multidimensional scaling program MD-SCAL, and the recovered stimulus configurations were successfully simulated from a simple version of the model.

The representation of numerical magnitude

“…Thus, although number can be represented with arbitrary symbols (e.g. '2' or 'two'), a nonverbal representation with an analog format underlies these symbols [6][7][8][9][10].…”

“…These numerical distance and magnitude effects have been replicated in many different languages and numerical notations [6][7][8][9][10]. Additional evidence that analog magnitude representations of number are language independent and, in fact, universal comes from recent studies of two indigenous Brazilian cultures with languages that contain few number words.…”

Defining task set reconfiguration: The case of reference point switching

“…The properties of shifting attention may be similar in both cases. Consequently, switching reference points may involve changing a task-set parameter that shifts attention, linking reconfiguration to a well-defined process that could be instantiated in computational models (Buckley & Gillman, 1974;Link, 1975;Poltrock, 1989).…”

Selective interference of grasp and space representations with number magnitude and serial order processing

“…Experiment 2 revealed a linear effect of number magnitude, which suggests that this dimension was processed as well but no interaction with leftright movements was observed. Note that this effect of magnitude reflects higher RTs to small numbers, which is reversed compared to the size effect (i.e., the observation that RTs for small numbers are generally speaking lower compared to large numbers, e.g, Buckley & Gillman, 1974) sometimes observed in other studies. Importantly, however, such a reversed size effect has already been observed in WM paradigms highly similar to the one used here (e.g., van Dijck et al, 2014) and thus suggests being a robust observation.…”