Abstract
Canonical finger postures, as used in counting, activate number knowledge, but the exact mechanism for this priming effect is unclear. Here we dissociated effects of visual versus motor priming of number concepts. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed either to pictures of canonical finger postures (visual priming) or actively produced the same finger postures (motor priming) and then used foot responses to rapidly classify auditory numbers (targets) as smaller or larger than 5. Classification times revealed that manually adopted but not visually perceived postures primed magnitude classifications. Experiment 2 obtained motor priming of number processing through finger postures also with vocal responses. Priming only occurred through canonical and not through non-canonical finger postures. Together, these results provide clear evidence for motor priming of number knowledge. Relative contributions of vision and action for embodied numerical cognition and the importance of canonicity of postures are discussed.
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Notes
We understand motor simulation with Jeannerod (2006, p. 129) “as the off-line rehearsal of neural networks involved in specific operations such as (…) acting. In other words, [motor] simulation is what makes it possible to (…) activate motor mechanisms without executing an action”.
Desmurget et al. (2000) estimated proprioceptive information from the unseen hand to remain cognitively available for at least 15 s.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) Grant Fi-1915/2-1 “manumerical cognition”.
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Handling editor: Klaus Kessler (Aston University); Reviewers: Sharlene Newman (Indiana University); Anna Borghi (University of Bologne).
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Sixtus, E., Fischer, M.H. & Lindemann, O. Finger posing primes number comprehension. Cogn Process 18, 237–248 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-017-0804-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-017-0804-y