Holistic processing of numerical arrays

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 45(6) of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (see record 2019-25779-001). In experiment 1, in the congruency effect analysis 3 partial Eta squares are missing (page 1017). In addition, in experiment 1 in the analysis of the average diameter group, two more statistics were incomplete (page 1017-1018). Additional details are included in the erratum. All versions of this article have been corrected.] At the early stages of concept acquisition, physical properties are inseparable of the concepts they form. With development, the concept seems to depart from the physical entities from which it emerged and seems to exist beyond its physical attributes. Numerosity is an abstract concept; however, physical properties such as diameter, area, and density have been shown to affect its perception in nonsymbolic comparison tasks. It remains unclear how these properties interact with numerosity and which property is most influential. We equated the ratio of 3 physical properties (average diameter, total surface area, and convex hull area) to the numerical ratio in order to examine which property is most discriminable and, therefore, most likely to be used. Our results demonstrate that convex hull is the most discriminable property. We suggest that holistic processing through global properties, such as convex hull, bridges between the physical world and abstract concepts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).