Magnitude and Order are Both Relevant in SNARC and SNARC‐like Effects: A Commentary on Casasanto and Pitt (2019)

Prpic, Valter; Mingolo, Serena; Agostini, Tiziano; Murgia, Mauro

doi:10.1111/cogs.13006

Cited by 17 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Prpic et al. (2021) argued that space‐number association observed in infants and nonhuman animals must rely on magnitude; they cannot be explained by ordinality because ordinality is “culturally acquired.” However, we are unaware of any evidence that supports this claim. The direction of people's mental mappings (e.g., left‐to‐right vs. right‐to‐left) varies across cultures and contexts (e.g., Pitt & Casasanto, 2020; Shaki, Fischer, & Petrusic, 2009), but the tendency to ordinalize objects or events appears to be universal: Children and adults from nonindustrialized cultures order novel stimuli according to their relative number, size, or age with little or no cultural support (Cooperrider, Marghetis, & Núñez, 2017; Pitt et al., 2021).…”

Section: Ordinality Need Not Be Culturally Acquiredmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a response to our paper, The Faulty Magnitude Detector: Why SNARC-like tasks cannot support a generalized magnitude system (Casasanto & Pitt, 2019), Prpic, Mingolo, Agostini, and Murgia (2021) argued that although some SNARC-like effects can be explained by ordinality, others can only be explained by magnitude. This argument rests on three claims:…”

mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…In a response to our paper, The Faulty Magnitude Detector: Why SNARC‐like tasks cannot support a generalized magnitude system (Casasanto & Pitt, 2019), Prpic, Mingolo, Agostini, and Murgia (2021) argued that although some SNARC‐like effects can be explained by ordinality, others can only be explained by magnitude. This argument rests on three claims: (1) magnitude can prevail on ordinality when they are pitted against each other; (2) some ordinality mappings can be ruled out on the basis of working memory constraints; and (3) ordinality is “culturally acquired.” Here, we challenge all three of these claims and clarify additional reasons why SNARC‐like tasks cannot support the generalized magnitude system (GMS) proposal (Walsh, 2003).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

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The Order of Magnitude: Why SNARC‐like Tasks (Still) Cannot Support a Generalized Magnitude System

Pitt

Casasanto

2022

Cognitive Science

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According to proponents of the generalized magnitude system proposal (GMS), SNARC‐like effects index spatial mappings of magnitude and provide crucial evidence for the existence of a GMS. Casasanto and Pitt (2019) have argued that these effects, instead, reflect mappings of ordinality, which people compute on the basis of differences among stimuli that vary either qualitatively (e.g., musical pitches) or quantitatively (e.g., dots of different sizes). In response to our paper, Prpic et al. (2021) argued that both magnitude and ordinality play a role in SNARC‐like effects. Here, we address each of their arguments and conclude that magnitude is relevant to these effects only insofar as it serves as a basis for ordinality. For this reason and others, SNARC or SNARC‐like effects cannot provide evidence for the putative generalized magnitude system.

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Section: Ordinality Need Not Be Culturally Acquiredmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 95%

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confidence: 97%

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The Order of Magnitude: Why SNARC‐like Tasks (Still) Cannot Support a Generalized Magnitude System

Pitt

Casasanto

2022

Cognitive Science

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“…Walsh (2003) also suggested that SNARC should prove to be a SQUARC (Spatial-Quantity Association of Response Codes) effect, thus that magnitudes across different domains should be spatially coded similarly to numbers. The large amount of evidence seems to support Walsh's (2003) prediction, although it is still a matter of debate whether these effects are actually driven by stimulus magnitude or ordinality (see Pitt, 2019 andPrpic et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting symbolic and non-symbolic numerical representations in a joint classification task

Prpic¹,

Basamh²,

Goodridge³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Both symbolic (digits) and non-symbolic (dots) numerals are spatially represented, with relatively small numbers being responded faster with a left key press and large numbers being responded faster with a right key press (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes). The idea of a format independent SNARC seems to support the existence of a common system for symbolic and non-symbolic numerical representations, although evidence in the field is still mixed. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether symbolic and non-symbolic numerals interact in the SNARC effect when both information is presented simultaneously. To do so, participants were presented with dice-like patterns with digits being used instead of dots. In two separate magnitude classification tasks, participants had to respond either to the number of digits being present on the screen or to their numerical size. In the non-symbolic task, they had to judge whether the digits on the screen were more or less than three, irrespective of the numerical value of the digits. In the symbolic task, participants had to judge whether the digits on the screen were numerically smaller or larger than three, irrespective of the number of digits being present. The results show a consistent SNARC effect in the symbolic task and no effect in the non-symbolic one. More interestingly, congruency between symbolic and non-symbolic numerals did not modulate the response patterns, thus supporting the idea of independent representations and questioning some of the current theoretical accounts.

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“…This body of evidence suggests that both ordinal and magnitude features can elicit a spatial representation (Prpic et al, 2021). Notably, there is a natural confound in the ordinal and magnitude properties of numerical stimuli because these features covariate in numbers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Snarcing with a phone: The role of order in spatial-numerical associations is revealed by context and task demands.

Mingolo

Prpic

Bilotta

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Previous literature on the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect examined which factors modulate spatial-numerical associations. Recently, the role of order in the SNARC effect has been debated, and further research is necessary to better understand its contribution. The present study investigated how the order elicited by the context of the stimuli and by task demands interact. Across three experiments, we presented numbers in the context of a mobile phone keypad, an overlearned numerical display in which the ordinal position of numbers differs from the mental number line. The experiments employed three tasks with different levels of consistency with the order elicited by the context. In Experiment 1, participants judged numbers based on their spatial position on the keypad, and we found a spatial association consistent with the keypad configuration, indicating that the spatial association is driven both by the context and by the task when they consistently elicit the same order. In Experiment 2a, participants performed a magnitude classification task, and results revealed a lack of spatial associations, suggesting a conflict between the orders elicited by the context and by the task. In Experiment 2b, participants performed a parity judgment task, and the results revealed a SNARC effect, suggesting that the order elicited by the context did not modulate the spatial association. Overall, three different tasks gave rise to three different results. This shows that the context alone is not sufficient in modulating spatial-numerical associations but that the consistency between the orders elicited by context and task demands is a key factor. Public Significance StatementHumans use spatial coordinates to mentally represent numbers. Typically, small numbers are represented on the left space and large numbers on the right space. However, the association between numbers and space is quite flexible, and previous studies showed that it could be modulated by the context in which numbers are presented. Is the context sufficient to modulate spatial-numerical associations? In the present study, we demonstrate that task demands have an important role and that the direction of the spatial-numerical association depends on the interaction between task demands and context.

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Magnitude and Order are Both Relevant in SNARC and SNARC‐like Effects: A Commentary on Casasanto and Pitt (2019)

Cited by 17 publications

References 12 publications

The Order of Magnitude: Why SNARC‐like Tasks (Still) Cannot Support a Generalized Magnitude System

The Order of Magnitude: Why SNARC‐like Tasks (Still) Cannot Support a Generalized Magnitude System

Contrasting symbolic and non-symbolic numerical representations in a joint classification task

Snarcing with a phone: The role of order in spatial-numerical associations is revealed by context and task demands.

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