Abstract
Recent studies have demonstrated that conceptual and abstract knowledge could rely on and could be influenced by sensory-motor processing of usual goal-directed actions. In line with this, interactions have been reported between number magnitude and finger grip with, for example, small-magnitude numbers priming grip closure and large-magnitude numbers priming grip aperture. Here, we assessed whether observing a closing or opening grip was able to influence the magnitude of the numbers produced in a random number generation task, and we tested whether this effect was specific to biological hand actions by using non-biological fake hands with the same closure or aperture amplitude. The participants were asked to produce as randomly as possible numbers between 1 and 10 after they observed a change in posture (i.e. grip closing or grip opening) or in colour (i.e. red or blue hand). The results revealed that the participants produced more often small numbers than large ones after observing a grip closing, whereas they produced equally often small and large numbers after observing a grip opening or colour changes. Importantly, this effect was only present for the biological hands but not for the non-biological fake hands. This finding demonstrates that observing a biological grip closing conveys small-magnitude information, which, in turn, influences the mental selection of a numerical response. We discuss our results in the light of the internal random generator process proposed in the domain of numerical cognition and argue that number semantics is stored with a code governed by sensory-motor mechanisms.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams JA (1986) Use of model’s knowledge of results to increase the observer’s performance. J Hum Mov Stud 12:89–98
Andres M, Davare M, Pesenti M, Olivier E, Seron X (2004) Number magnitude and grip aperture interaction. NeuroReport 15:2773–2777
Badets A, Pesenti M (2010) Creating number semantics through finger movement perception. Cognition 115:46–53
Badets A, Pesenti M (2011) Finger-number interaction an ideomotor account. Exp Psychol 58:287–292
Badets A, Andres M, Di Luca S, Pesenti M (2007) Number magnitude potentiates action judgements. Exp Brain Res 180:525–534
Barsalou LW (1999) Perceptual symbol systems. Behav Brain Sci 22:577–609
Binkofski F, Buccino G, Posse S, Seitz RJ, Rizzolatti G, Freund HJ (1999) A fronto-parietal circuit for object manipulation in man: evidence from an fMRI-study. Eur J Neurosci 11:3276–3286
Bueti D, Walsh V (2009) The parietal cortex and the representation of time, space, number and other magnitudes. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 364:1831–1840
Coull JT, Nobre AC (1998) Where and when to pay attention: the neural systems for directing attention to spatial locations and to time intervals as revealed by both PET and fMRI. J Neurosci 18:7426–7435
Culham JC, Danckert SL, DeSouza JFX, Gati JS, Menon RS, Goodale MA (2003) Visually guided grasping produces fMRI activation in dorsal but not ventral stream brain areas. Exp Brain Res 153:180–189
Dehaene S, Bossini S, Giraux P (1993) The mental representation of parity and number magnitude. J Exp Psychol Gen 122:371–396
Goodale MA, Milner AD (2004) Sight unseen: an exploration of consciousness and unconscious vision. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Grezes J, Decety J (2001) Functional anatomy of execution, mental simulation, observation, and verb generation of actions: a meta-analysis. Hum Brain Mapp 12:1–19
Hartmann M, Grabherr L, Mast FW (2011) Moving along the mental number line: Interactions between whole-body motion and numerical cognition. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. doi:10.1037/a0026706
Kunde W, Koch I, Hoffmann J (2004) Anticipated action effects affect the selection, initiation, and execution of actions. Q J Exp Psychol A 57:87–106
Lindemann O, Abolafia JA, Girardi G, Bekkering H (2007) Getting a grip on numbers: numerical magnitude priming in object grasping. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 33:1400–1409
Loetscher T, Brugger P (2007) Exploring number space by random digit generation. Exp Brain Res 180:655–665
Loetscher T, Schwarz U, Schubiger M, Brugger P (2008) Head turns bias the brain’s internal random generator. Curr Biol 18:R60–R62
Loetscher T, Bockisch CJ, Nicholls MER, Brugger P (2010) Eye position predicts what number you have in mind. Curr Biol 20:R264–R265
Malfait N, Valyear KF, Culham JC, Anton J-L, Brown LE, Gribble PL (2010) fMRI Activation during observation of others’ reach errors. J Cogn Neurosci 22:1493–1503
Pesenti M, Thioux M, Seron X, De Volder A (2000) Neuroanatomical substrates of Arabic number processing, numerical comparison, and simple addition: a PET study. J Cogn Neurosci 12:461–479
Song J-H, Nakayama K (2008) Numeric comparison in a visually-guided manual reaching task. Cognition 106:994–1003
Van der Linden M, Beerten A, Pesenti M (1998) Age-related differences in random generation. Brain Cogn 38:1–16
Walsh V (2003) A theory of magnitude: common cortical metrics of time, space and quantity. Trends Cogn Sci 7:483–488
Acknowledgments
La Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société de Poitiers (France) financially supported this study. We are grateful to Yves Almecija (CNRS-UMR-7295) for his valuable comments for the editing of the pictures used in the present study. MP is a research associate at the National Fund for Scientific Research (Belgium).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Badets, A., Bouquet, C.A., Ric, F. et al. Number generation bias after action observation. Exp Brain Res 221, 43–49 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3145-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3145-1