UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Do numbers make us handy? Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for number-hand congruency effect

Sabaghypour, Saied; Moghaddam, Hassan Sabouri; Navi, Farhad Farkhondeh Tale; Nazari, Mohammad Ali; Soltanlou, Mojtaba; (2023) Do numbers make us handy? Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for number-hand congruency effect. Acta Psychologica , 233 , Article 103841. 10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103841. Green open access

[thumbnail of Sabaghupour et al_2023_Do numbers make us handy? Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for number-hand congruency effect.pdf]
Preview
PDF
Sabaghupour et al_2023_Do numbers make us handy? Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for number-hand congruency effect.pdf - Published Version

Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

Finger counting facilitates numerical representations and mathematical processing. The current study investigated the association between finger counting habits and number processing by employing behavioral and electrophysiological measures. We explored whether small and large numerical primes influence the recognition of embodied target hand stimuli. Twenty-four right-handed participants that were grouped into right-starters (n = 13) and left-starters (n = 11) for finger counting performed a hand recognition task that consisted of numerical magnitudes as prime and hand recognition as targets. Based on the finger counting habits, congruent (i.e., left-starters: small number/left hand or large number/right hand; right-starters: small number/right hand or large number/left hand) and incongruent (i.e., left-starters: large number/left hand or small number/right hand; right-starters: large number/right hand or small number/left hand) conditions were presented to the participants. The participants were required to indicate whether the targets were left or right hand by simply pressing the left or the right key, respectively. Results indicated faster reaction times (RTs) for congruent as opposed to incongruent trials for all participants. The mean amplitude of the centro-parietal P300 component was significantly increased for the incongruent compared to congruent condition, indicating increased mental effort. Also, analysis of the latency of the P300 in terms of congruency effect in all participants revealed significant results. These combined results provide behavioral and electrophysiological evidence indicating the embodied nature of numbers. The results are interpreted in light of the general findings related to the P300 component. This research supports the association of number-hand representations and corroborates the idea of embodied numerosity.

Type: Article
Title: Do numbers make us handy? Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for number-hand congruency effect
Location: Netherlands
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103841
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103841
Language: English
Additional information: © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. under a Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Keywords: Finger counting habits, Numerical processing, Hand recognition, Congruency effect, Event-related potentials, ERP
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Psychology and Human Development
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10197557
Downloads since deposit
0Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item