Conflict resolution in two-digit number processing: evidence of an inhibitory mechanism

Macizo, Pedro

doi:10.1007/s00426-015-0716-3

Cited by 10 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(76 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This effect has been termed the parity congruency effect (Dehaene et al, 1993;Heubner et al, 2018). Huber et al (2015) suggest that it stems from a two-step process: First, parity information of both digits is extracted automatically; second, the parity of the decade digit needs to be inhibited with cognitive effort, leading to increased reaction times in incongruent trials (see also Macizo, 2017). It must be emphasized that in these studies participants only had to judge the whole number's parity, which is fully determined by the parity of the unit digit.…”

Section: Decomposed Processing In Parity Judgement Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic place-value activation in magnitude-irrelevant parity judgement

Cipora

Soltanlou

Smaczny

et al. 2019

Psychological Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research on multi-digit number processing suggests that, in Arabic numerals, their place-value magnitude is automatically activated, whenever a magnitude-relevant task was employed: However, so far, it is unknown, whether place-value is also activated when the target task is magnitude-irrelevant. The current study examines this question by using the parity congruency effect in two-digit numbers: It describes that responding to decade-digit parity congruent numbers (e.g., 35, 46; same parity of decades and units) is faster than to decade-digit parity incongruent numbers (e.g., 25; 36; different parities of decades and units). Here we investigate the (a-)symmetry of the parity congruency effect; i.e. whether it makes a difference whether participants are assessing the parity of the unit digit or the decade digit. We elaborate, how and why such an asymmetry is related to place-value processing, because the parity of the unit digit only interferes with the parity of the decade digit, while the parity of the decade digit interferes with both the parity of the unit digit and the integrated parity of the whole two-digit number. We observed a significantly larger parity congruency effect in the decade parity decision than in the unit parity decision. This suggests that automatic place-value processing also takes place in a typical parity judgment task, in which magnitude is irrelevant. Finally, because of the crosslingual design of the study, we can show that these results and their implications were languageindependent.

show abstract

Section: Decomposed Processing In Parity Judgement Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic place-value activation in magnitude-irrelevant parity judgement

Cipora

Soltanlou

Smaczny

et al. 2019

Psychological Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Accordingly, individual determinants influencing inhibitory control should also influence the unit-decade compatibility effect and the adaptation to filler items. In two-digit number comparison tasks with different decades, the unit magnitudes are irrelevant, which leads to cognitive conflict (Macizo, 2017). According to the conflict monitoring theory (Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001) and the adaptation by binding theory (Verguts, & Notebaert, 2009), the irrelevant information is discarded to select the correct number, particularly on incompatible trials, which generate longer response times.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to the conflict monitoring theory (Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001) and the adaptation by binding theory (Verguts, & Notebaert, 2009), the irrelevant information is discarded to select the correct number, particularly on incompatible trials, which generate longer response times. Macizo (2017) suggested that inhibitory control is the mechanism underlying the resolution of conflict in the unitdecade compatibility effect. Moreover, it has been shown that less efficient inhibitory control leads to a greater increase of the unit-decade compatibility effect due to the inclusion of filler items.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences influence two-digit number processing, but not their analog magnitude processing: a large-scale online study

Huber

Nuerk

Reips

et al. 2017

Psychological Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Symbolic magnitude comparison is one of the most well-studied cognitive processes in research on numerical cognition. However, while the cognitive mechanisms of symbolic magnitude processing have been intensively studied, previous studies have paid less attention to individual differences influencing symbolic magnitude comparison. Employing a two-digit number comparison task in an online setting, we replicated previous effects, including the distance effect, the unit-decade compatibility effect, and the effect of cognitive control on the adaptation to filler items, in a large-scale study in 452 adults. Additionally, we observed that the most influential individual differences were participants' first language, time spent playing computer games and gender, followed by reported alcohol consumption, age and mathematical ability. Participants who used a first language with a left-to-right reading/writing direction were faster than those who read and wrote in the right-to-left direction. Reported playing time for computer games was correlated with faster reaction times. Female participants showed slower reaction times and a larger unit-decade compatibility effect than male participants. Participants who reported never consuming alcohol showed overall slower response times than others. Older participants were slower, but more accurate. Finally, higher grades in mathematics were associated with faster reaction times. We conclude that typical experiments on numerical cognition that employ a keyboard as an input device can also be run in an online setting. Moreover, while individual differences have no influence on domain-specific magnitude processing-apart from age, which increases the decade distance effect-they generally influence performance on a two-digit number comparison task.

show abstract

“…This suggests that more inhibition toward local or less inhibition toward global information is related to a reduced tendency to base number comparison on mental representations of single digit magnitudes rather than whole number magnitudes. In the case of incompatible items, correct decisions require the inhibition of single digit, that is, unit digit, magnitudes (compare Macizo, 2017). The faster this local level information is inhibited, the faster reactions to incompatible items can occur and the smaller is the unit-decade compatibility effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The missing link: Global-local processing relates to number-magnitude processing in women.

Pletzer¹,

Scheuringer²,

Harris³

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Number processing and visual hierarchical processing (global-local processing) have much in common. However, the shared aspects of number processing and global-local processing have not been investigated so far. Most visual stimuli are hierarchical with global structures made up of local parts. Processing of global and local aspects occurs in parallel and the global advantage effect indicates faster reactions to global than local aspects. Likewise, multidigit numbers can be represented holistically (whole number magnitudes) or in a decomposed fashion (single digit magnitudes). During comparison of 2-digit numbers, the unit-decade compatibility effect indicates slower responses when the larger number contains the smaller unit digit and has been suggested as a measure of how strongly participants rely on decomposed number representations. However, this interpretation of the compatibility effect is still controversial and a link between global-local processing and the individual tendency to rely on decomposed representations of multidigit numbers remains to be established. To that end we assessed whether the compatibility effect during number comparison was related to various measures of global advantage. To answer this question we drew upon existing data from participants who had completed both, the number comparison task and 2 global-local tasks. Results show that the compatibility effect is indeed negatively related to several measures of global advantage in women, with no evidence for such a relationship in men. These results demonstrate that global-local processing transcends into the numerical domain but also suggest that the compatibility effect reflects different mechanisms in men and women.

show abstract

Conflict resolution in two-digit number processing: evidence of an inhibitory mechanism

Cited by 10 publications

References 48 publications

Automatic place-value activation in magnitude-irrelevant parity judgement

Automatic place-value activation in magnitude-irrelevant parity judgement

Individual differences influence two-digit number processing, but not their analog magnitude processing: a large-scale online study

The missing link: Global-local processing relates to number-magnitude processing in women.

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About