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The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition
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Measuring spatial-numerical associations: evidence for a purely conceptual link
Martin H Fischer1, Samuel Shaki2
1Division of Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 24-25, House 14, 14476, Potsdam OT Golm, Germany. martinf@uni-potsdam.de.
Psychological Research
|January 25, 2015
Summary
Spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) were investigated using a novel task that separates spatial and number classification. Findings suggest SNAs exist independently of prior methodological limitations, possibly involving working memory.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Neuroscience
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- Previous research on spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) used methods potentially introducing artifacts.
- The spatial nature of number concepts might have been an artifact of experimental design.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate SNAs using a novel task.
- To dissociate spatial classification from number classification.
- To overcome limitations of previous SNA research.
Main Methods:
- A novel experimental task was designed.
- The task involved two categories: spatially oriented objects and number magnitudes.
- Spatial and number classification were dissociated.
Main Results:
- SNAs were observed.
- The results were free from the inferential limitations of previous studies.
- A working memory mechanism for cross-category spatial coding was suggested.
Conclusions:
- SNAs are a robust phenomenon.
- Working memory plays a role in transferring spatial information across numerical and non-numerical categories.
- Future research should explore the neural basis of this cross-category transfer.
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