Verbal interference suppresses exact numerical representation
Name
Frank et al. Cognitive Psychology 2012[1].pdf
Size
635.99 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
25c09db28a12d2bc43fb7e03d38e38a6
Author(s)
Frank, Michael C.
Fedorenko, Evelina
Lai, Peter
Saxe, Rebecca R.
Gibson, Edward A.
Date Issued
November 2011
Journal
Cognitive Psychology
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Frank, Michael C., Evelina Fedorenko, Peter Lai, Rebecca Saxe, and Edward Gibson. “Verbal Interference Suppresses Exact Numerical Representation.” Cognitive Psychology 64, no. 1–2 (February 2012): 74–92.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Language for number is an important case study of the relationship between language and cognition because the mechanisms of non-verbal numerical cognition are well-understood. When the Pirahã (an Amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe who have no exact number words) are tested in non-verbal numerical tasks, they are able to perform one-to-one matching tasks but make errors in more difficult tasks. Their pattern of errors suggests that they are using analog magnitude estimation, an evolutionarily- and developmentally-conserved mechanism for estimating quantities. Here we show that English-speaking participants rely on the same mechanisms when verbal number representations are unavailable due to verbal interference. Followup experiments demonstrate that the effects of verbal interference are primarily manifest during encoding of quantity information, and—using a new procedure for matching difficulty of interference tasks for individual participants—that the effects are restricted to verbal interference. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that number words are used online to encode, store, and manipulate numerical information. This linguistic strategy complements, rather than altering or replacing, non-verbal representations.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2011.10.004
