Cross-dimensional compatibility effects between quantities, valence and space: Points of convergence and points of divergence
{day_3l_code}-Talk III-
Room: B21
Chair/s:
Christian Seegelke, Peter Wühr
During the last decades, researchers discovered and investigated a multitude of cross-dimensional S-R compatibility effects between different stimulus and response dimensions, including quantities, valence, and space. A prominent example is the SNARC (spatial-numerical association of response codes) effect, which describes the fact that human participants are faster and more accurate when responding to small numbers with a left rather than right response, and vice versa. Similar compatibility effects occur when physical size (spatial-size association of response code, SSARC) or valence varies as a stimulus feature, and participants respond with spatially distinct responses. Both the etiology and the structural sources of these compatibility effects are a matter of considerable debate. For many cross-dimensional compatibility effects, both local accounts (e.g., the mental number line as an explanation for the SNARC effect) and global accounts, which attempt to explain several phenomena through a general principle (e.g., a theory of magnitude; polarity correspondence) have been proposed. In this symposium, we present new research on different, cross-dimensional compatibility effects. Two contributions deal with the SNARC effect (Miklashevsky, Lindemann, & Fischer; Wühr & Richter), two talks report on the SSARC effect (e.g., Seegelke & Wühr; Wühr, Richter, & Seegelke), and a fifth contribution is concerned with valence-space interactions (Kühne, Nenaschew, & Miklashevsky). Based on these and other results, we evaluate similarities and differences between different compatibility effects, and discuss the plausibility of global accounts for these effects.
Christian Seegelke (Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria | Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria)