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Random walks on the mental number line

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Abstract

The direction of influence between conceptual and motor activation, and its relevance for real-life activities, is still unclear. Here, we use the frequently reported association between small/large numbers and left/right space to investigate this issue during walking. We asked healthy adults to generate random numbers as they made lateral turns and found that (1) lateral turn decisions are predicted by the last few numbers generated prior to turning; (2) the intention to turn left/right makes small/large numbers more accessible; and (3) magnitude but not order of auditorily presented numbers influences the listener’s turn selection. Our findings document a bidirectional influence between conceptual and motor activation and point to a hierarchically organized conceptual–motor activation.

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Notes

  1. Aside from these studies of sensory and motor processes in relation to numerical cognition, there are some studies showing only unilateral spatial biases or spatial biases in the vertical or radial dimensions (e.g., Shaki and Fischer 2012; Gevers et al. 2006), and more recent thoughts about a working memory involvement in SNARC (cf. Van Dijck and Fias 2011). These and other recent studies (e.g., Ferrè et al. 2013; Hartmann et al. 2012; Grade et al. 2013) show that number-space interactions are not necessarily uniform, and that alternative, non-sensory-motoric interpretations of the SNARC effect, such as sequential order in working memory or a polarity correspondence between magnitudes and space, may exist. For a fuller review, please refer to Göbel et al. (2011).

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Acknowledgments

We thank Anna Vaisertraiger for her help with data collection and several anonymous reviewers for comments that helped to improve this report.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ariel University Center, 44837, Ariel, Israel

    Samuel Shaki

  2. University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Martin H. Fischer

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  1. Samuel Shaki
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  2. Martin H. Fischer
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Correspondence to Samuel Shaki.

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Shaki, S., Fischer, M.H. Random walks on the mental number line. Exp Brain Res 232, 43–49 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3718-7

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