Submission 308
Influence of Cultural and Linguistic Context on Spatial-Numerical Associations in German-Turkish Bilinguals
Posterwall-43
Presented by: Yaren Findik
Spatial representations of numbers vary with reading/writing directions and - as recently discovered - with cultural directional preferences (i.e., directional habits in visuo-motor activities or directional associations in certain cultural environments). This was observed in a between-subjects study with the SNARC effect (Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes; faster responses to small/large numbers with the left/right hand, respectively). However, previous studies showed that the SNARC effect even depends on reading-direction contexts within-subjects in bilingual samples. The current study investigated possible context influences of cultural directional preferences within the same reading direction by examining the SNARC effect in German-Turkish bilinguals living in Germany. Two experimental sessions (conducted entirely in either German or Turkish, minimum separation of one week) were carried out per participant. Each session consisted of the Revised Cultural Directional Preferences Questionnaire, a covariates questionnaire, and a parity judgment task with number words. Preliminary results (currently n = 40 of N = 92 planned) (1) showed a SNARC effect in the parity judgment task in each context, as expected; (2) did not show any difference in the SNARC effect between the Turkish and German contexts, contrary to our predictions. In explorative analyses, it seemed that cultural directional preferences did not change within-subjects as a function of cultural context and consequently, the spatial-numerical associations did not vary either. We conclude that while reading/writing direction contexts seem to modulate spatial-numerical associations, cultural directional preferences and their impact seem to be much more stable within-subjects.