The Association of Number and Space Under Different Tasks: Insight From a Process Perspective

We investigated the Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect in 240 adults using a parity judgment and a magnitude classification task. Eight numbers from 1 to 9 except 5 were randomly presented one at a time, half of the participants were asked to compare these number with the target number 5 in the magnitude classification task; the other half of the participants were asked to judge whether these numbers were even or odd. It was called a phase when all eight numbers were tested; there were in total 16 phases. Detailed analyses of the changes in response times across the range of numbers and the chronological trend of the SNARC effect size over 16 phases estimated by a curvilinear regression model were reported. This phase-to-phase design and analyses provide an insight into the process of the SNARC effect in different tasks. We found that the SNARC effect emerged earlier and stayed more stable in magnitude classification task than in the parity task during the time course. Furthermore, the size of SNARC effect increased with time in the magnitude classification task, whereas it fluctuated up and down over time in the parity task. These findings indicate that the association of the number and space is dynamic and the process of the SNARC effect varies across tasks.