Number to me, space to you: Joint representation of spatial-numerical associations

Recent work has shown that number concepts activate both spatial and magnitude representations. According to the social co-representation literature which has shown that participants typically represent task components assigned to others together with their own, we asked whether explicit magnitude meaning and explicit spatial coding must be present in a single mind, or can be distributed across two minds, to generate a spatial-numerical congruency effect. In a shared go/no-go task that eliminated peripheral spatial codes, we assigned explicit magnitude processing to participants and spatial processing to either human or non-human co-agents. The spatial-numerical congruency effect emerged only with human co-agents. We demonstrate an inter-personal level of conceptual congruency between space and number that arises from a shared conceptual representation not contaminated by peripheral spatial codes. Theoretical implications of this finding for numerical cognition are discussed.

Automated summary

Recent research has shown that number concepts can activate both spatial and magnitude representations simultaneously. In a shared task where explicit magnitude processing was assigned to participants and spatial processing was assigned to human co-agents, a spatial-numerical congruency effect was only observed with human co-agents. This suggests an interpersonal level of conceptual congruency between space and number concepts that is not influenced by peripheral spatial codes.