The Mechanism of the Ordinal Position Effect: Stability Across Sense Modalities and the Hands Crossed Context

Abstract

The ordinal position effect posits that items positioned earlier in an ordinal sequence are responded to faster with the left key than the right key, and items positioned later in an ordinal sequence are responded to faster with the right key than the left key. Although the mechanism of the ordinal position effect has been investigated in many studies, it is unclear whether the ordinal position effect can extend to the auditory modality and the hands crossed context. Therefore, the present study employed days as the order information to investigate this question. Days were visually or acoustically displayed on a screen in random order, and participants were instructed to judge whether the probe day they perceived was before or after the current day (days-relevant task) or to identify the color or voice of the probe day they perceived (days-irrelevant task). The results indicate the following: (a) The days before the current day were responded to faster with the left key than the right key, and the days after the current day were responded to faster with the right key than the left key, both when the days-relevant task and the days-irrelevant task were performed, regardless of the sense modality. (b) The ordinal position effect for judgments of days was also obtained in the auditory modality even when the hands were crossed. These results indicate that the ordinal position effect can extend to the auditory modality and the hands crossed context, similar to the spatial-numerical association of response codes effect of numbers.

Do preliterate children spontaneously employ spatial coding for serial order in working memory?

“…We believe, however, that these findings relate to a mechanism that is qualitatively different from serial order WM, which we investigated here with the OPE. Our main argument is that the OPE is based on an allocentric coding of space, 6,26,27 whereas spatial competence in terms of allocentric codes only emerges around 22 months of age 28 . Moreover, in the previous work, we have framed the OPE in terms (hippocampal dependent) of item–space binding (i.e., coding serial order across items by binding the items to systematically arranged, spatially defined position markers 15,16 ), a mechanism recycled from the brain's systems for mnemonic coding of external space.…”

The spatial coding mechanism of ordinal symbols: a study based on the ordinal position effect

“…Previous studies identified the ordinal position effect in the processing of multiple types of ordinal symbols, such as letters, days, months, overlearned sequences and temporary ordinal sequences (Gevers et al, 2003(Gevers et al, , 2004Previtali et al, 2010;van Dijck & Fias, 2011;Wang et al, 2019). These studies indicated that the occurrence of the ordinal position effect suggests that ordinal symbols, similar to numbers, are represented spatially from left to right according to their original ordinal sequence and depending on one's reading and writing habits.…”

“…In addition, the results also suggested that the ordinal position effect could not be influenced by the spatial locations of the ordinal symbols in the ordinal position classification task. Previous studies indicated that the ordinal position effect occurred during the processing of ordinal symbols acquired by overlearning (e.g., letters) and those induced by successively presented stimuli (e.g., numbers) when participants were asked to judge the ordinal positions of probe stimuli (Fischer et al, 2010;Gevers et al, 2003;Ginsburg et al, 2017;Ginsburg & Gevers, 2015;Huber et al, 2016;Treccani & Umiltà, 2011;van Dijck & Fias, 2011;Wang et al, 2019). Therefore, these studies consistently indicated that the occurrence of the ordinal position effect implied that ordinal symbols, similar to numbers, were represented spatially from left to right according to their original ordinal sequence and consistent with one's reading and writing habits.…”

“…The occurrence of the ordinal position effect in letter processing suggested that similar to numbers, letters are also represented spatially from left to right according to their original ordinal sequence in the alphabet (Gevers et al, 2003). Recently, increasing studies have replicated the ordinal position effect in the processing of other types of ordinal symbols and have extended this effect to the processing of various types of ordinal symbols (Gevers, Reynvoet, & Fias, 2004;Ginsburg, Archambeau, Van Dijck, Chetail, & Gevers, 2017;Ginsburg, & Gevers, 2015;Huber, Klein, Moeller, & Willmes, 2016;Previtali, de Hevia, & Girelli, 2010;Treccani & Umiltà, 2011;van Dijck, Abrahamse, Majerus, & Fias, 2013;Wang, Nie, Zhang, & Shi, 2019;Zhang et al, 2016). For example, van Dijck et al centrally and randomly presented five successive numbers from 1 to 10 on a screen during the learning stage and instructed participants to memorize these successive numbers in the order of presentation.…”

Influence of Number Location on the SNARC Effect: Evidence From the Processing of Rotated Traditional Chinese Numerical Words

“…Given that a number contains spatial properties and is represented spatially based on its numerical magnitude from left to right (Aiken & Williams, 1973;Galton, 1880;Restle, 1970), Dehaene et al interpreted this SNARC effect as the result of the mental spatial representation of numbers. Therefore, the SNARC effect is regarded as the gold standard to examine whether a specific symbol is represented spatially in one's mind, and it has been widely applied in other studies (Shi et al, 2019;Wang et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2019).…”