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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 29, 2026

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Published on: November 30, 2018

Counting is a spatial process: evidence from eye movements.

Matthias Hartmann^1,2, Fred W Mast³, Martin H Fischer⁴

¹Division of Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25 House 14, 14476, Potsdam OT Golm, Germany. matthias.hartmann@psy.unibe.ch.

Psychological Research

|November 27, 2015

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Counting involves moving along a mental number line, with eye movements reflecting this spatial operation. This suggests space is crucial for complex number tasks beyond simple magnitude representation.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Numerical Cognition

Background:

Spatial-numerical associations link small numbers to left/lower space and large numbers to right/upper space, supporting the mental number line concept.
The role of these spatial associations in complex number processing like counting remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if counting is associated with movement along the mental number line.
To determine if eye movements reflect spatial operations during counting.

Main Methods:

Participants performed upward or downward counting aloud in steps of 3 for 45 seconds.
Gaze position was monitored during the counting tasks while participants viewed a blank screen.

Main Results:

Gaze position shifted rightward and upward during upward counting.
The pattern for downward counting was less distinct, but results supported a mental number line movement for addition.

Conclusions:

Counting is linked to movement along the mental number line, supporting its role in active number operations.
Eye movements visually reflect these spatial mental operations during complex tasks like counting.