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Get in touch with numbers - an approximate number comparison task in the haptic modality.
Marco Carlo Ziegler1, Knut Drewing2
1University of Giessen, Department of Psychological Assessment, Giessen, Germany. marco.c.ziegler@psychol.uni-giessen.de.
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|January 22, 2022
Summary
The Approximate Number System (ANS) processes numbers imprecisely across senses. However, this study found visual and haptic number processing are not strongly correlated, suggesting modality-specific integration.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
Background:
- The Approximate Number System (ANS) is thought to be an innate, abstract system for perceiving quantities.
- A key assumption is that ANS is cross-sensory, meaning it functions similarly across different sensory modalities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if approximate number processing is shared across sensory modalities.
- To compare performance in haptic (touch) and visual approximate number tasks.
Main Methods:
- Participants performed a dot comparison task (DCT) in both haptic and visual modalities.
- The task involved comparing two dot arrays to determine which had more dots.
- Ratios between dot arrays ranged from 1.1 to 2.0.
Main Results:
- Performance in both haptic and visual DCTs depended on the ratio of dots, as expected.
- Individual performance in haptic and visual tasks showed weak correlations, challenging the cross-sensory theory.
- Regression models indicated that features beyond pure number, like spacing, influence numerosity perception in both modalities.
Conclusions:
- Results contradict the strong theory of a single, modality-independent ANS.
- Evidence suggests that approximate number processing involves modality-specific integration of numerical and non-numerical features.
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