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Small number preference in guiding attention

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Abstract

Healthy individuals are usually biased toward small numbers when they are asked to mentally bisect number intervals or generate number sequences. Number magnitude may be represented spatially along a left-to-right mental number line. The preference for small numbers is believed to reflect the leftward spatial bias of this numerical representation. This study examined whether small numbers captured visual attention more than larger numbers. Participants were asked to detect a target pre-cued by a small or a large number. We found that the response was faster when the target was pre-cued by a small number than when pre-cued by a large number, suggesting that visual attention is preferentially allocated to small numbers. In addition, this attentional preference for small numbers was distinct for participants of different educational backgrounds. For science or engineering participants, this small number preference was enhanced by left-hand responding and was positively correlated with the small number preference in a random number generation task, suggesting that the small number preference was attributable to a leftward bias of the spatial representation. For liberal arts participants, however, left-hand responding did not enhance the small number preference and no correlations were found between the attention task and the random number generation task, suggesting that non-spatial processing mediated the small number preference. Our findings show that the small number preference occurs as early as the perceptual processing stage and distinct mechanisms underlie the preference for small numbers for participants with different educational backgrounds.

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Notes

  1. Given the spatial representation of numerical information, the small number priority in attracting attention (if any) might be affected by the location of the target. To test this possibility, we conducted ANOVAs with the side of the target as one of the factors for each experiment. The main effect of target side was significant for Experiments 1 and 2 (Exp. 1, F(1, 15) = 11.92, p = 0.004, η 2 = 0.44; Exp. 2, F(1, 28) = 17.18, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.33). The mean RT was shorter when the target was presented to the left side than when it was presented to the right side. The interaction between the side of the target and the side of the response hand was significant in Experiments 2 and 3 (Exp. 2, F(1, 28) = 65.01, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.70; Exp. 3, F(1, 70) = 95.54, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.58). All other interactions involving the target-side factor were not significant.

  2. Subjects of Experiments 1 and 2 were students from an Introductory Psychology course at Zhejiang University. Subjects’ curriculum information of the first two experiments is not available. However, the course was mainly given for students in the College of Science, who were majoring in scientific fields. Thus, the pattern of results in Experiment 2 would likely be similar to that of the science or engineering group in Experiment 3.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundations of China (31100731), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LY13C090001), Zhejiang Province Education Department (Y201122208), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. We thank Dr. Shena Lu for correcting the English in the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Xixi Campus, Zhejiang University, 148 Tianmushan Road, Hangzhou, 310028, People’s Republic of China

    Yong-Chun Cai & Shuang-Xia Li

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  1. Yong-Chun Cai
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  2. Shuang-Xia Li
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Correspondence to Yong-Chun Cai.

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Cai, YC., Li, SX. Small number preference in guiding attention. Exp Brain Res 233, 539–550 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4134-3

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