Abstract
Numerical representations influence temporal processing. Previous studies have consistently shown that larger numbers are perceived to last longer than smaller ones. However, whether this effect is modulated by the absolute or relative magnitudes of the numbers has yet to be fully understood. Here, participants observed single- and double-digit Arabic numerals in separate experimental blocks and reproduced stimulus duration of 600 or 1200 ms. Our results replicated previous findings that the duration of larger numbers was reproduced longer than that of smaller numbers within each digit set. Although the effect of numerical magnitude across single- and double-digit numerals was found when the numerals were presented for 600 ms, the difference was negligible when they were presented for 1200 ms, suggesting that relative magnitude is an important factor in the number–time interaction in the suprasecond range. These results suggest that contextual influence on number–time interaction may depend on the actual stimulus duration.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bächtold D, Baumüller M, Brugger P (1998) Stimulus–response compatibility in representational space. Neuropsychologia 36:731–735
Bland JM, Altman DG (1995) Calculating correlation coefficients with repeated observations: Part 1—correlation within subjects. BMJ 310:446
Brainard DH (1997) The psychophysics toolbox. Spat Vis 10:433–436
Bueti D, Walsh V (2009) The parietal cortex and the representation of time, space, number and other magnitudes. Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 364:1831–1840. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0028
Cappelletti M, Freeman ED, Cipolotti L (2011) Numbers and time doubly dissociate. Neuropsychologia 49:3078–3092. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.07.014
Casini L, Ivry RB (1999) Effects of divided attention on temporal processing in patients with lesions of the cerebellum or frontal lobe. Neuropsychology 13:10–21
Castronovo J, Seron X (2007) Semantic numerical representation in blind subjects: the role of vision in the spatial format of the mental number line. Q J Exp Psychol 60:101–119
Chang AYC, Tzeng OJL, Hung DL, Wu DH (2011) Big time is not always long: numerical magnitude automatically affects time reproduction. Psychol Sci 22:1567–1573. doi:10.1177/0956797611418837
Cousineau D (2005) Confidence intervals in within-subject designs: a simpler solution to Loftus and Masson’s method. Tutor Quant Methods Psychol 1:42–45
Dehaene S (1997) The number sense: how the mind creates mathematics. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Dehaene S, Bossini S, Giraux P (1993) The mental representation of parity and number magnitude. J Exp Psychol Gen 122:371–396
Dehaene S, Piazza M, Pinel P, Cohen L (2003) Three parietal circuits for number processing. Cogn Neuropsychol 20:487–506. doi:10.1080/02643290244000239
Dormal V, Andres M, Pesenti M (2008) Dissociation of numerosity and duration processing in the left intraparietal sulcus: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study. Cortex 44:462–469. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2007.08.011
Fias W (2001) Two routes for the processing of verbal numbers: evidence from the SNARC effect. Psychol Res 65:250–259
Fias W, Marc B, Frank G, d’Ydewalle G (1996) The importance of magnitude information in numerical processing: evidence from the SNARC effect. Math Cogn 2:95–110
Fischer MH (2008) Finger counting habits modulate spatial–numerical associations. Cortex 44:386–392
Fischer MH, Mills R, Shaki S (2010) How to cook a SNARC: number placement in text rapidly changes spatial-numerical associations. Brain Cogn 72:333–336
Gallistel CR, Gelman R (2000) Non-verbal numerical cognition: from reals to integers. Trends Cogn Sci 4:59–65
Gevers W, Reynvoet B, Fias W (2003) The mental representation of ordinal sequences is spatially organised. Cognition 87:B87–B95
Hayashi MJ, Kanai R, Tanabe HC, Yoshida Y, Carlson S, Walsh V, Sadato N (2013a) Interaction of numerosity and time in prefrontal and parietal cortex. J Neurosci 33:883–893. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.6257-11.2013
Hayashi MJ, Valli A, Carlson S (2013b) Numerical quantity affects time estimation in the suprasecond range. Neurosci Lett 543:7–11. doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2013.02.054
Henry MJ, McAuley JD (2009) Evaluation of an imputed pitch velocity model of the auditory kappa effect. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 35:551–564. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.35.2.551
Jacob SN, Nieder A (2009) Notation-independent representation of fractions in the human parietal cortex. J Neurosci 29:4652–4657. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0651-09.2009
Jacob SN, Vallentin D, Nieder A (2012) Relating magnitudes: the brain’s code for proportions. Trends Cogn Sci 16:157–166. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2012.02.002
Lee KH, Egleston PN, Brown WH, Gregory AN, Barker AT, Woodruff PWR (2007) The role of the cerebellum in subsecond time perception: evidence from repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation. J Cogn Neurosci 19:147–157
Lewis PA, Miall RC (2003) Brain activation patterns during measurement of sub- and supra-second intervals. Neuropsychologia 41:1583–1592. doi:10.1016/S0028-3932(03)00118-0
Lu A, Hodges B, Zhang J, Zhang JX (2009) Contextual effects on number–time interaction. Cognition 113:117–122. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2009.07.001
Mitchell T, Bull R, Cleland AA (2012) Implicit response-irrelevant number information triggers the SNARC effect: evidence using a neural overlap paradigm. Q J Exp Psychol 65(10):1945–1961
Nieder A (2005) Counting on neurons: the neurobiology of numerical competence. Nat Rev Neurosci 6:177–190. doi:10.1038/nrn1626
Nieder A, Merten K (2007) A labeled-line code for small and large numerosities in the monkey prefrontal cortex. J Neurosci 27:5986–5993. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1056-07.2007
Nuerk HC, Wood G, Willmes K (2005) The universal SNARC effect. The association between number magnitude and space is amodal. Exp Psychol 52:187–194
Oliveri M, Vicario CM, Salerno S, Koch G, Turriziani P, Mangano R et al (2008) Perceiving numbers alters time perception. Neurosci Lett 438:308–311. doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2008.04.051
Pelli DG (1997) The VideoToolbox software for visual psychophysics: transforming numbers into movies. Spat Vis 10:437–442
Pinhas M, Pothos EM, Tzelgov J (2013) Zooming in and out from the mental number line: evidence for a number range effect. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 39:972–976. doi:10.1037/a0029527
Pouthas VV, Garnero LL, Ferrandez AMA, Renault BB (2000) ERPs and PET analysis of time perception: spatial and temporal brain mapping during visual discrimination tasks. Hum Brain Mapp 10:49–60. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0193(200006)10:2<49:AID-HBM10>3.0.CO;2-8
Rammsayer TH (1999) Neuropharmacological evidence for different timing mechanisms in humans. Q J Exp Psychol B 52:273–286
Rammsayer TH, Lima SD (1991) Duration discrimination of filled and empty auditory intervals: cognitive and perceptual factors. Percept Psychophy 50:565–574
Rao SM, Mayer AR, Harrington DL (2001) The evolution of brain activation during temporal processing. Nat Neurosci 4:317–323
Ryan TH (1960) Significance tests for multiple comparison of proportions, variances, and other statistics. Psychol Bull 57:318–328
Sarrazin J-C, Giraudo M-D, Pailhous J, Bootsma RJ (2004) Dynamics of balancing space and time in memory: tau and kappa effects revisited. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 30:411–430. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.30.3.411
Shaki S, Petrusic WM (2005) On the mental representation of negative numbers: context-dependent SNARC effects with comparative judgments. Psychon Bull Rev 12:931–937
Vicario CM (2011) Perceiving numbers affects the subjective temporal midpoint. Perception 40:23–29
Vicario CM, Pecoraro P, Turriziani P, Koch G, Caltagirone C, Oliveri M (2008) Relativistic compression and expansion of experiential time in the left and right space. PLoS ONE 3:e1716. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001716.g002
Vicario CM, Rappo G, Pepi A, Pavan A, Martino D (2012) Temporal abnormalities in children with developmental dyscalculia. Dev Neuropsy 37:636–652. doi:10.1080/87565641.2012.702827
Vicario CM, Martino D, Koch G (2013) Temporal accuracy and variability in the left and right posterior parietal cortex. Neuroscience 245:121–128
Viswanathan P, Nieder A (2013) Neuronal correlates of a visual “sense of number” in primate parietal and prefrontal cortices. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110:11187–11192. doi:10.1073/pnas.1308141110
Walsh V (2003) A theory of magnitude: common cortical metrics of time, space and quantity. Trend Cogn Sci 7:483–488. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2003.09.002
Walsh V (2015) A theory of magnitude: The parts that sum of numbers. In: Cohen Kadosh R, Dowker A (eds) The Oxford handbook of numerical cognition. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 552–565
Wood G, Willmes K, Nuerk H-C, Fischer M (2008) On the cognitive link between space and number: a metaanalysis of the SNARC effect. Psychol Sci Quart 50:489–525
Xuan B, Zhang D, He S, Chen X (2007) Larger stimuli are judged to last longer. J Vis 7(10–2):1–5. doi:10.1167/7.10.2
Acknowledgments
This research was supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows to KY (#254215) and KS (#266025), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (#23240034), and CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency to KW.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Handling editor: Martin H. Fischer, University of Potsdam, Germany.
Reviewers: Michal Pinhas, Ariel University, Israel; Carmelo Vicario, Bangor University, UK.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yamamoto, K., Sasaki, K. & Watanabe, K. The number–time interaction depends on relative magnitude in the suprasecond range. Cogn Process 17, 59–65 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-015-0744-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-015-0744-3