Spatial complexity facilitates ordinal mapping with a novel symbol set

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Symbolic Representation
• Ordinal Learning

Background:

• The uniqueness of number symbol representation is often assumed but under-researched.
• Little is known about how symbol properties, like spatial complexity, impact ordinal learning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether the spatial complexity of symbols affects the learning of ordinal sequences.
• To determine if novel symbol sets can be ordered based on spatial complexity.

Main Methods:

• Study 1: 46 adults evaluated novel symbol sets (Gibson, Sunúz) for spatial complexity ordering.
• Study 2: 84 adults learned to order nine Sunúz symbols using paired comparisons and ranking.
• Participants were assigned to conditions with either a relationship or random relationship between spatial complexity and symbol order.

Main Results:

• Findings indicate that spatial complexity significantly affected participants' learning ability.
• Pairing spatial complexity with relational information facilitated the learning of ordinal sequences.

Conclusions:

• Symbolic spatial complexity plays a role in the ease of learning ordinal sequences.
• This suggests that the cognitive representation of order may be a general feature applicable beyond numerical symbols.