Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 414-425, April 2022.

People can be taught to manipulate symbols according to formal mathematical and logical rules. Cognitive scientists have traditionally viewed this capacity—the capacity for symbolic reasoning—as grounded in the ability to internally represent numbers, logical relationships, and mathematical rules in an abstract, amodal fashion. We present an alternative view, portraying symbolic reasoning as a special kind of embodied reasoning in which arithmetic and logical formulae, externally represented as notations, serve as targets for powerful perceptual and sensorimotor systems. Although symbolic reasoning often (...) conforms to abstract mathematical principles, it is typically implemented by perceptual and sensorimotor engagement with concrete environmental structures. (shrink)

Whether negative numbers have a fixed spatial–numerical association of response codes effect, and whether the spatial representation of negative numbers is associated with negative numbers’ absolute or signed values remains controversial. In this study, through three experiments, the coding level of the magnitude and the spatial-direction is manipulated. In the first experiment, participants are required to code the magnitude and spatial-direction explicitly by using a magnitude classification task. In the second experiment, participants are forced to code the magnitude implicitly as (...) well as to code the spatial-direction explicitly by utilizing a cuing task. In the third experiment, participants are obliged to code the magnitude explicitly as well as to code the spatial-direction implicitly by adopting a magnitude and arrow-direction classification tasks with Go/No-Go responses. The results show that the absolute value of negative numbers associates with space when the magnitude of negative numbers is explicitly coded, no matter employing the explicit or implicit spatial-direction; the signed value of negative numbers associates with space under the condition of implicit magnitude as well as explicit spatial-direction. In conclusion, the current study indicates that the SNARC effect of negative numbers is variable in different conditions, and the type of SNARC effect about negative numbers is modulated by the joint coding level of the magnitude and spatial-direction. (shrink)