Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: The SNARC effect specifically relates small magnitudes to the left hand side and larger magnitudes to the right hand side (e.g.Dehaene et al., 1990;Dehaene et al., 1993).It is certain that cultural characteristics define the SNARC effect: In western cultures small and large numbers are coded in a left-right direction while in Arabic countries magnitude information is coded from right to left (Dehaene et al., 1993; Zebian, in press).In this sense, reading and writing direction have been considered to be the main determinants of the SNARC effect.Indeed, a number of recent studies support the idea that the mastering of a language (and thus reading and writing direction) biases scanning habit in a favourable direction (e.g.Chatterjee et al., 1999; Padakanaya et al., 2002).If this is indeed the case, it is not surprising that the SNARC effect has been found with stimuli other than numbers (Gevers et al., 2004).Related to this, future research could address the question if magnitude and ordinal information are processed by the same mechanism or by different mechanisms with similar properties.However, reading and writing direction alone are not sufficient to explain all SNARC related findings.For instance, it does not allow for an explanation of a vertical SNARC effect as observed by Schwarz and Keus (2004).Apparently, other variables are important in the onset of an association between numbers and space.Furthermore, the existence of a SNARC effect in the vertical dimension could indicate that the number line can be conceptually extended to a number map.Another puzzling question is to what reference frame the SNARC effect is based.Based on the finding of a SNARC effect with both unimanual (Fischer, 2003a) and oculomotor responses (Fischer et al., 2004;Schwarz & Keus, 2004) at this moment an egocentric allocation of the SNARC effect does not seem feasible.On the other hand, both behavioural (e.g.Bächtold et al., 1998) and neuropsychological studies (Veuilleumier et al., 2004) point out that the mental representation of numerical information in itself is of major importance to the SNARC effect.
Authors: Wim Gevers, Jan Lammertyn
Institution: Ghent University
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2597810418