How magnitude and ordinal cues of stimuli influence the SNARC effect

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2025.0749

Abstract

Abstract:

The Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect is prevalent in various forms of number and numerical magnitude stimuli processing, but the mechanism by which the magnitude and order cues in the stimuli affect the SNARC effect is still unclear. Herein, a letter magnitude activation task was designed to systematically investigate this mechanism and the impacts of magnitude and order cues on the SNARC effect. After various numbers of letters were continuously presented to activate the letters’ magnitude information, the participants were asked to perform the letter order classification task (Experiment 1), the letter magnitude parity classification task (Experiment 2) and the letter color classification task (Experiment 3). The results showed that: (1) The magnitude SNARC effect and the order SNARC effect occurred simultaneously in the letter order classification task (Experiment 1), but their interaction was not significant. (2) In the parity classification task of letter magnitude (Experiment 2), this interaction was significant, which was manifested in the phenomenon where the magnitude SNARC effect appeared only under the condition of ordinal-spatial consistency, and the order SNARC effect appeared only under the condition of numerical-spatial consistency. (3) In the letter color classification task (Experiment 3), only the order SNARC effect appeared without the magnitude SNARC effect, and their interaction was not significant. The above indicated that: (1) The SNARC effect can be caused by both the magnitude cues and the order cues of the stimuli. (2) The magnitude and order cues had different influencing mechanisms on the SNARC effect and showed the task context dependence. These findings support and improve the magnitude ordinality dual action theory.

Key words: SNARC effect, priming paradigm, numerical-spatial consistency, ordinal-spatial consistency, cognitive task

WANG Qiangqiang, WU Yanwen, SHI Wendian, YOU Xuqun. (2025). How magnitude and ordinal cues of stimuli influence the SNARC effect. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 57(5), 749-761.

Figures/Tables 8

Figure 1. Flowchart of the experiment. The figure depicts the flowchart for a single trial with four consecutive presentations of the letter B as the example. All screens were presented for 500 ms, except for the target stimulus (letter B on the next screen after fixation point ‘+’), which was presented for 3000 ms, and the last screen, which was presented for 1500 ms.

Figure 2. Magnitude and order SNARC effects in letter order classification. Error bars represent standard errors. * denotes p < 0.05. ** denotes p < 0.01. *** denotes p < 0.001. Error bars and asterisks in all subsequent figures in this study represent the same meaning as in this figure.

Figure 3. Error rates and standard errors on magnitude-spatial and ordinal-spatial consistency and inconsistency trials in letter order classification task.

Figure 4. Magnitude SNARC effect in order SNARC consistent and inconsistent conditions in letter magnitude parity classification task.

Figure 5. Order SNARC Effect in magnitude SNARC consistent and inconsistent conditions in letter magnitude parity classification task.

Figure 6. Error rates and standard errors in magnitude-spatial and ordinal-spatial consistency and inconsistency trials in the letter magnitude classification task.

Figure 7. Magnitude and order SNARC effect in letter color classification task.

Figure 8. Error rates and standard errors of magnitude-spatial and ordinal-spatial consistency and inconsistency trials in letter color classification task.

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