Spatializing Emotions Besides Magnitudes: Is There a Left-to-Right Valence or Intensity Mapping?

The Spatial–Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC), namely the automatic association between smaller numbers and left space and between larger numbers and right space, is often attributed to a Mental Number Line (MNL), in which magnitudes would be placed left-to-right. Previous studies have suggested that the MNL could be extended to emotional processing. In this study, participants were asked to carry out a parity judgment task (categorizing one to five digits as even or odd) and an emotional judgment task, in which emotional smilies were presented with four emotional expressions (very sad, sad, happy, very happy). Half of the sample was asked to categorize the emotional valence (positive or negative valence), the other half was asked to categorize the emotional intensity (lower or higher intensity). The results of the parity judgment task confirmed the expected SNARC effect. In the emotional judgment task, the performance of both subgroups was better for happy than for sad expressions. Importantly, a better performance was found only in the valence task for lower intensity stimuli categorized with the left hand and for higher intensity stimuli categorized with the right hand, but only for happy smilies. The present results show that neither emotional valence nor emotional intensity alone are spatialized left-to-right, suggesting that magnitudes and emotions are processed independently from one another, and that the mental representation of emotions could be more complex than the bi-dimentional left-to-right spatialization found for numbers.

Automatic place-value activation in magnitude-irrelevant parity judgement

Research on multi-digit number processing suggests that, in Arabic numerals, their place-value magnitude is automatically activated, whenever a magnitude-relevant task was employed: However, so far, it is unknown, whether place-value is also activated when the target task is magnitude-irrelevant. The current study examines this question by using the parity congruency effect in two-digit numbers: It describes that responding to decade-digit parity congruent numbers (e.g., 35, 46; same parity of decades and units) is faster than to decade-digit parity incongruent numbers (e.g., 25; 36; different parities of decades and units). Here we investigate the (a-)symmetry of the parity congruency effect; i.e. whether it makes a difference whether participants are assessing the parity of the unit digit or the decade digit. We elaborate, how and why such an asymmetry is related to place-value processing, because the parity of the unit digit only interferes with the parity of the decade digit, while the parity of the decade digit interferes with both the parity of the unit digit and the integrated parity of the whole two-digit number. We observed a significantly larger parity congruency effect in the decade parity decision than in the unit parity decision. This suggests that automatic place-value processing also takes place in a typical parity judgment task, in which magnitude is irrelevant. Finally, because of the cross-lingual design of the study, we can show that these results and their implications were language-independent.

The influence of number magnitude on continuous swiping movements

There is accumulating evidence that numerical information influences the way in which we perform bodily movements. Specifically, the idea that our cognitive representations of numbers and space interact is supported by systematic associations of space with both number magnitude (SNARC effect) and number parity (MARC effect). However, whether this influence is bound to the left or right side of space or to the hand with which we perform the movement remains debated. One novel and interesting way to disentangle these factors is to use movement responses in which hand and movement direction can be dissociated. In the present study, participants moved a central object to the left or right side on a touchscreen with their index fingers as response to a parity judgment and magnitude classification task. We observed significant SNARC effects in both tasks. Number magnitude and response direction interacted, but magnitude and response hand did not. This indicated that the SNARC effect can be independent of the responding hand. Importantly, however, a MARC effect was observed not only in an interaction between response direction and parity, but also in an interaction between response hand and parity, suggesting that response hand plays a role in the interaction between physical space and parity. Additionally, number magnitude influenced the amplitude of participants’ response movements, with larger numbers eliciting longer movements. These results indicate that space, magnitude and parity interact on different levels that can be unraveled in a paradigm utilizing continuous movements such as swiping.

Language-Switch of a Parity Judgment Task in Multilinguals

This study attempts to explore a possible mode of language switching process of multilinguals (Russian-English-Chinese) from the perspectives of language-switching cost based on event related potentials (ERP). Thirty Belarusians studying Chinese in China participated in this experiment. Behavioral results show under three-language-switching-conditions, the mean response time for switch trials is shorter than non-switch trials. Switching cost between Russian and English, Russian and Chinese is symmetric, while English and Chinese is asymmetric. ERP results indicate a negative deflection peaking around 320 ms is observed under conditions of L2-L1 and L3-L1 switching over the entire bilateral frontal sites. The study proposes a processing mode based on the idea of conflict discovery and resolution to contribute to a further understanding of language switching mechanisms.

Parity Influences the Difficulty of Simple Addition and Subtraction but Not Multiplication Problems in Children

In the present paper, the results of early 20th century studies of children's difficulties with basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication problems are analyzed for parity effects. Parity influenced the difficulty of addition and subtraction problems, tasks in which any parity influence must be implicit, but did not influence difficulty of multiplication problems. Solution of multiplication problems relies to a greater extent on retrieval of rote-memorized answers. Addition and subtraction problems rely more on non-retrieval strategies. It is these latter strategies that depend on internal representations sensitive to the parity status of the numbers being processed. That parity affected responding in tasks where parity was irrelevant and no overt motor responses were made poses problems for the Markedness of Response Codes (MARC) and polarity explanations of parity effects in reaction time. Both these explanations require that an explicit parity judgment indicated by a binary motor response be made for a parity effect to be seen.

Functional Neuroanatomy of Mental Rotation

Brain regions involved in mental rotation were determined by assessing increases in fMRI activation associated with increases in stimulus rotation during a mirror-normal parity-judgment task with letters and digits. A letter–digit category judgment task was used as a control for orientation-dependent neural processing unrelated to mental rotation per se. Compared to the category judgments, the parity judgments elicited increases in activation in both the dorsal and the ventral visual streams, as well as higher-order premotor areas, inferior frontal gyrus, and anterior insula. Only a subset of these areas, namely, the posterior part of the dorsal intraparietal sulcus, higher-order premotor regions, and the anterior insula showed increased activation as a function of stimulus orientation. Parity judgments elicited greater activation in the right than in the left ventral intraparietal sulcus, but there were no hemispheric differences in orientation-dependent activation, suggesting that neither hemisphere is dominant for mental rotation per se. Hemispheric asymmetries associated with parity-judgment tasks may reflect visuospatial processing other than mental rotation itself, which is subserved by a bilateral fronto-parietal network, rather than regions restricted to the posterior parietal.

Roman Digit Naming

Earlier research with monolinguals and bilinguals showed that numbers may be named through both a semantic and a phonological route, depending on the number's language and format (Arabic or verbal), task demands, and naming language. The present study investigated the importance of the semantic route for the processing of a third representation of magnitude, namely Roman digits. Using an interference paradigm, we showed that the processing of Roman target digits is influenced by Arabic digit distractors, both in a naming task and a parity judgment task. Roman digits were processed faster if the target and distractor were of the same magnitude. If this was not the case, processing speed slowed down as the numerical distance between target and distractor increased. This strongly suggests that semantic access is mandatory when naming Roman digits. Implications are discussed for the number processing domain and for models of translation in bilinguals.

Cross-Notation Number Priming Investigated at Different Stimulus Onset Asynchronies in Parity and Naming Tasks

In this paper, a parity judgment task and a number naming task were used to investigate cross-notational number priming. Primes and targets could be verbal (e.g., seven) or Arabic numbers (e.g., 7), and were always presented in a different notation within the same trial (either a verbal prime and an Arabic target or an Arabic prime and a verbal target). Previous experiments showed that response latencies increase when the distance between prime and target increases (for example, in a naming task, seven is pronounced faster after 6 than after 5). This semantic distance priming effect was the same for Arabic and verbal targets and was the same for within-notation trials as for cross-notation trials. In the present experiments, we wanted to investigate whether the cross-notational priming effect also occurs at SOAs shorter than the ones used in previous experiments. Therefore, we used SOAs of 43, 57, 86, and 115 ms. Semantic distance effects were indeed present at these shorter SOAs: Processing times in the semantic parity judgment task and in the non-semantic naming task increased when the distance between prime and target increased. The results are discussed and integrated within an interactive dual-route model of number processing that postulates that the impact of the semantic and the non-semantic route depends on the task and the notation of the stimuli.