Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 14, 2026

Generating Strictly Controlled Stimuli for Figure Recognition Experiments
Published on: March 18, 2019
The spatial representation of numerical and non-numerical sequences: evidence from neglect
Marco Zorzi1, Konstantinos Priftis, Francesca Meneghello
1Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy. marco.zorzi@unipd.it
Abstract:
Psychophysical and neuropsychological studies have revealed that humans represent numbers along a continuous, left-to-right oriented mental line. However, it has been recently claimed that this format of representation is not special to numbers because non-numerical sequences would be spatially coded in the same way. To test this hypothesis, the present study investigated the effects of left neglect upon the bisection of numerical and non-numerical intervals. Eight patients with left neglect performed a visual line bisection task and three mental bisection tasks with number, letter, and month intervals. The error pattern in the number bisection task, indexed by the modulating effect of interval length, mirrored that of the visual task and confirmed the left-to-right spatial orientation of the mental number line. In contrast, the bisection of non-numerical intervals showed a very different pattern. The results suggest that the spatial layout characterizing numerical representations constitutes a specific property of numbers rather than a general characteristic of ordered sequences.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Sequences
Introduction to Sequences
How Data are Classified: Numerical Data
Quantitative data may be either discrete or continuous. All quantitative data that take on only specific numerical...
Basic Discrete Time Signals
The unit impulse or sample sequence is mathematically expressed as zero for all n values except at n=0, where it is one. The unit impulse sequence, denoted by δ(n), is the first difference of the unit step sequence, while the unit step sequence u(n) is the...
Signal Sequences and Sorting Receptors
Per-Unit Sequence Models
Zero-sequence currents, which are identical in magnitude and phase, generate a neutral current, resulting in voltage drops across the neutral impedance and the low-voltage winding. If the...

