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Symbolic Numerical Distance Effect Does Not Reflect the Difference between Numbers

In a comparison task, the larger the distance between the two numbers to be compared, the better the performance—a phenomenon termed as the numerical distance effect. According to the dominant explanation, the distance effect is rooted in a noisy representation, and performance is proportional to th...

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Autores principales: Krajcsi, Attila, Kojouharova, Petia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5715324/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29250002
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02013
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author Krajcsi, Attila
Kojouharova, Petia
author_facet Krajcsi, Attila
Kojouharova, Petia
author_sort Krajcsi, Attila
collection PubMed
description In a comparison task, the larger the distance between the two numbers to be compared, the better the performance—a phenomenon termed as the numerical distance effect. According to the dominant explanation, the distance effect is rooted in a noisy representation, and performance is proportional to the size of the overlap between the noisy representations of the two values. According to alternative explanations, the distance effect may be rooted in the association between the numbers and the small-large categories, and performance is better when the numbers show relatively high differences in their strength of association with the small-large properties. In everyday number use, the value of the numbers and the association between the numbers and the small-large categories strongly correlate; thus, the two explanations have the same predictions for the distance effect. To dissociate the two potential sources of the distance effect, in the present study, participants learned new artificial number digits only for the values between 1 and 3, and between 7 and 9, thus, leaving out the numbers between 4 and 6. It was found that the omitted number range (the distance between 3 and 7) was considered in the distance effect as 1, and not as 4, suggesting that the distance effect does not follow the values of the numbers predicted by the dominant explanation, but it follows the small-large property association predicted by the alternative explanations.
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spelling pubmed-57153242017-12-15 Symbolic Numerical Distance Effect Does Not Reflect the Difference between Numbers Krajcsi, Attila Kojouharova, Petia Front Psychol Psychology In a comparison task, the larger the distance between the two numbers to be compared, the better the performance—a phenomenon termed as the numerical distance effect. According to the dominant explanation, the distance effect is rooted in a noisy representation, and performance is proportional to the size of the overlap between the noisy representations of the two values. According to alternative explanations, the distance effect may be rooted in the association between the numbers and the small-large categories, and performance is better when the numbers show relatively high differences in their strength of association with the small-large properties. In everyday number use, the value of the numbers and the association between the numbers and the small-large categories strongly correlate; thus, the two explanations have the same predictions for the distance effect. To dissociate the two potential sources of the distance effect, in the present study, participants learned new artificial number digits only for the values between 1 and 3, and between 7 and 9, thus, leaving out the numbers between 4 and 6. It was found that the omitted number range (the distance between 3 and 7) was considered in the distance effect as 1, and not as 4, suggesting that the distance effect does not follow the values of the numbers predicted by the dominant explanation, but it follows the small-large property association predicted by the alternative explanations. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-11-16 /pmc/articles/PMC5715324/ /pubmed/29250002 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02013 Text en Copyright © 2017 Krajcsi and Kojouharova. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Krajcsi, Attila
Kojouharova, Petia
Symbolic Numerical Distance Effect Does Not Reflect the Difference between Numbers
title Symbolic Numerical Distance Effect Does Not Reflect the Difference between Numbers
title_full Symbolic Numerical Distance Effect Does Not Reflect the Difference between Numbers
title_fullStr Symbolic Numerical Distance Effect Does Not Reflect the Difference between Numbers
title_full_unstemmed Symbolic Numerical Distance Effect Does Not Reflect the Difference between Numbers
title_short Symbolic Numerical Distance Effect Does Not Reflect the Difference between Numbers
title_sort symbolic numerical distance effect does not reflect the difference between numbers
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5715324/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29250002
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02013
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