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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 12, 2026

The (Spatial) Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition

The (Spatial) Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition

Published on: February 19, 2018

Numbers and space: a cognitive illusion?

Maria Dolores de Hevia¹, Luisa Girelli, Giuseppe Vallar

¹Dipartimento di Psicologia, Universitá degli Studi Milano-Bicocca, Edificio U6 Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo, 1, 20126, Milano, Italy. lola.dehevia@unimib.it

Experimental Brain Research

|July 27, 2005

Summary

This study reveals that spatial biases in number tasks are linked to how we perceive magnitude, suggesting numbers are organized on a mental number line. This effect may stem from a cognitive illusion of length.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Numerical Cognition
Spatial Representation

Background:

Investigates the connection between how we understand numbers and how we perceive space.
Explores the theory that numerical meaning is organized on an internal spatial framework, a mental number line.

Purpose of the Study:

To examine the relationship between numerical and spatial representations using a bisection task.
To determine if spatial biases in number processing are influenced by magnitude, perception, attention, or numerical constraints.

Main Methods:

Employed a bisection task across four experiments.
Experiments involved bisection of digit strings, flanked lines, unfilled spaces, and combinations thereof.
Varied stimuli to isolate perceptual, attentional, and numerical factors influencing spatial biases.

Main Results:

Experiments 1 and 2 showed spatial biases related to relative magnitude processing.
Experiments 3 and 4 identified perceptual, attentional, and numerical constraints on these biases.
A cognitive illusion of length appears to compensate for numerical disparity.

Conclusions:

Spatial biases in number tasks are influenced by magnitude perception and potentially cognitive illusions.
The findings support the mental number line hypothesis, where larger numbers are associated with rightward spatial representation.
The bias operates categorically (small/large), suggesting a fundamental aspect of numerical-spatial integration.