A working memory account for spatial-numerical associations
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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

An Appetitive Spatial Working Memory Task for Mice in a Semi-Automated 8-Arm Radial Maze, Reducing Fearful Memory Association in the Maze
Published on: July 29, 2025
Jean-Philippe van Dijck1, Wim Fias
1Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium. jeanphilippe.vandijck@ugent.be
Abstract:
Several psychophysical and neuropsychological investigations have suggested that the mental representation of numbers takes the form of a number line along which magnitude is positioned in ascending order according to our reading habits. A longstanding debate is whether this spatial frame is triggered automatically as intrinsic part of the number semantics or whether it constitutes a short-term representation constructed during task execution. Although several observations clearly favor the working memory account, its causal involvement has not yet been demonstrated. In two experiments we show that information stored in working memory get spatially coded in function of its ordinal position in the sequence and that the spatial-numerical associations typically observed in number categorization tasks draw upon this mechanism.
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