Processing Stage Flexibility of the SNARC effect: Task Relevance or Magnitude Relevance?

Xiang, Xinrui; Yan, Lizhu; Fu, Shimin; Nan, Weizhi

doi:10.1101/2022.03.07.482213

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 63 publications

(138 reference statements)

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“…Presumably, participants with a greater ability to inhibit the gender-space line (and associated responses) will be more efficient to respond to the actual demands of the task, compared to those with lower cognitive inhibition ability (or efficiency), who showed a stronger gender-space association effect. This response pattern would be in line with the above-mentioned works (see also Hoffmann et al, 2014;Georges et al, 2018;Xiang et al, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Cognitive inhibition abilities explain inter-individual variability in gender-space associations

Calvente,

Noguera,

Álvarez

et al. 2023

Front. Psychol.

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There is a great deal of research describing the close association that exists between numerical and spatial representations, illustrating the SNARC (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Code) effect. This effect signals the spatial mental representation of small numbers to the left and larger numbers to the right, coinciding with the direction of reading and writing. Subsequent research has found a similar spatial representation for other stimuli (e.g., size of objects and animals, and words associated with time). Some of these spatially represented stimuli are social in nature, even suggesting a spatial mental organization of stimuli based on gender (e.g., the upper part of a vertical axis for males and the lower part for females). The aim of the present study was threefold (1) to replicate and extend results on the existence of a mental gender line (as a function of response hand: female-left hand and male-right hand) when responding simply to gender of stimuli; (2) to explore the influence of inhibitory control; and, (3) to determine whether gender-space associations depend on the explicit or implicit nature of a gender task. Three experiments were designed to pursue these objectives. In Experiment 1, female, male and neutral faces and names were displayed, and the participants were asked to identify their gender. Experiment 2, which also included a Stroop task, followed the same procedure as Experiment 1, but displayed objects that could be designated as female or male and others not related to any gender. Finally, in Experiment 3, in which participants were asked to respond to the direction of an arrow, object gender was not relevant to the task. Consistent with previous research and confirming our hypotheses, the results showed a spatial mental representation of the stimuli based on gender in all three experiments, regardless of whether the stimulus was consciously perceived. Moreover, inhibitory ability showed a relationship with the gender-space line effect. The contributions and implications of this study are discussed, as are possible limitations and future lines of research.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%