The malleable impact of non-numeric features in visual number perception

Dramkin, Denitza; Bonn, Cory D.; Baer, Carolyn; Odic, Darko

doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103737

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Consistent with prior work, computer‐generated auditory feedback was given based on performance (e.g., “Good job!” for correct responses; “Oh, that's not right!” for incorrect responses; Odic, 2018; Wang et al., 2016). This was done to help maintain children's attention and also eliminate response conflicts between Number and other dimensions (e.g., cumulative area, spatial density; see DeWind & Brannon, 2012; Dramkin et al., 2022).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children dynamically update and extend the interface between number words and perceptual magnitudes

Dramkin

Odic

2023

Developmental Science

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As adults, we represent and think about number, space, and time in at least two ways: our intuitive—but imprecise—perceptual representations, and the slowly learned—but precise—number words. With development, these representational formats interface, allowing us to use precise number words to estimate imprecise perceptual experiences. We test two accounts of this developmental milestone. Either slowly learned associations are required for the interface to form, predicting that deviations from typical experiences (e.g., presentation of a novel unit or unpracticed dimension) will disrupt children's ability to map number words to their perceptual experiences or children's understanding of the logical similarity between number words and perceptual representations allows them to flexibly extend this interface to novel experiences (e.g., units and dimensions they have not yet learned how to formally measure). 5–11‐year‐olds completed verbal estimation and perceptual sensitivity tasks across three dimensions: Number, Length, and Area. For verbal estimation, they were given novel units (i.e., a three‐dot unit called one “toma” for Number, a 44 px long line called one “blicket” for Length, a 111 px2 blob called one “modi” for Area) and asked to estimate how many tomas/blickets/modies they saw when shown a larger set of dots, lines, and blobs. Children could flexibly link number words to novel units across dimensions, demonstrating positive estimation slopes, even for Length and Area, which younger children had limited experience with. This suggests that the logic of structure mapping can be dynamically utilized across perceptual dimensions, even without extensive experience.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children dynamically update and extend the interface between number words and perceptual magnitudes

Dramkin

Odic

2023

Developmental Science

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“…According to one hypothesis, these interactions can be explained by a partially overlapping representation of numerical and non-numerical quantities (Walsh, 2003), subserved by shared neural resources (Sokolowski et al, 2017, for a meta-analysis). Others postulate an interference between competing representations at the response selection level after initial parallel processing Nys & Content, 2012), as also suggested by the variability of interference effects in different contexts (Dramkin et al, 2022). An alternative view instead argues that the influence of non-numerical visual cues suggests that numerical information might be indirectly extracted by weighting non-numerical quantitative information, thus calling into question the very concept of "number sense" (Gebuis et al, 2016;Gevers et al, 2016).…”

Section: Measuring Temporal Bias In Sequential Numerosity Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring temporal bias in sequential numerosity comparison

Dolfi¹,

Testolin²,

Cutini³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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While several methods have been proposed to assess the influence of continuous visual cues in parallel numerosity estimation, the impact of temporal magnitudes on sequential numerosity judgments has been largely ignored. To overcome this issue, we extend a recently proposed framework that allows separating the contribution of numerical and non-numerical information in numerosity comparison by introducing a novel stimulus space designed for sequential tasks. Our method systematically varies the temporal magnitudes embedded into event sequences through the orthogonal manipulation of numerosity and two latent factors, which we name “Duration” and “Temporal Spacing”. This allows us to measure the contribution of finer-grained temporal features on numerosity judgments in several sensory modalities. We validate the proposed method on two different experiments in both visual and auditory modalities: results show that adult participants discriminated sequences primarily by relying on numerosity, with similar acuity in the visual and auditory modality. However, participants were also similarly influenced by non-numerical cues, such as the total duration of the stimuli, suggesting that temporal cues can significantly bias numerical processing. Our findings highlight the necessity to carefully consider the continuous properties of numerical stimuli also in a sequential mode of presentation, with particular relevance in multi-modal and cross-modal investigations. We provide the complete code for creating sequential stimuli and analyzing participants’ responses.

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