Linguistic relativity and numeric cognition: New light on a prominent test case

Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (2013), pp. 91-103

Number Conceptualisation among Lebanese Micro-Business Owners who Engage in Orally-Based Versus Paper-Based Numeracy Practices: An Experimental Cognitive Ethnography

The study of everyday numeric thinking in adults directs our attention to several aspects of number cognition that have received almost no attention in the experimental cognitive science literature, namely the influences of socially situated artifact use on numeric processing. The current studies explore numeral recognition and conceptualisation processes in business people who engage in different types of numeracy practices; orally based numeracy practices which involve very little use of written records compared to paper-based numeracy practices. Ethnographic observations of Lebanese business people were conducted to gain a detailed understanding of the socio-cognitive demands in orally-based paperless and paper-based business settings. These observations were in turn used to design experimental reaction time studies which investigated currency based numeral recognition and conceptualisation processes. The results of the numeral recognition and priming studies clearly illustrate that the use of artifacts in everyday numeracy practices influences numeral recognition and conceptualisation in a way that suggests tight linkages between the visio-spatial processes involve in recognizing numerals embedded in cultural artifacts and the semantically based processes involved in the conception of these numerals. The relevance of the current findings for the main models of adult numeric cognition and for research on everyday numeracy will be discussed.

Linkages between Number Concepts, Spatial Thinking, and Directionality of Writing: The SNARC Effect and the REVERSE SNARC Effect in English and Arabic Monoliterates, Biliterates, and Illiterate Arabic Speakers

The current investigations coordinate math cognition and cultural approaches to numeric thinking to examine the linkages between numeric and spatial processes, and how these linkages are modified by the cultural artifact of writing. Previous research in the adult numeric cognition literature has shown that English monoliterates have a spatialised mental number line which is oriented from left-to-right with smaller magnitudes associated with the left side of space and larger magnitudes are associated with the right side of space. These associations between number and space have been termed the Spatial Numeric Association Response Code Effect (SNARC effect, Dehaene, 1992). The current study investigates the spatial orientation of the mental number line in the following groups: English monoliterates, Arabic monoliterates who use only the right-left writing system, Arabic-English biliterates, and illiterate Arabic speakers who only read numerals. Current results indicate, for the first time, a Reverse SNARC effect for Arabic monoliterates, such that the mental number line had a right-to-left directionality. Furthermore, a weakened Reverse SNARC was observed for Arabic-English biliterates, and no effect was observed among Illiterate Arabic speakers. These findings are especially notable since left-right biases are neurologically supported and are observed in pre-literate children regardless of which writing system is used by adults. The broader implications of how cultural artifacts affect basic numeric cognition will be discussed.