Influence Of Body Relative Position And Spatial Reference Frame On Spatial-numerical Association Representation

Numerical processing is the cognitive processing of individuals’ mental representation of number stimuli,which involves not only the quantitative information of numbers,but also visual information,visual space and verbal representation encoding information,among which the spatial-numerical association representation has been widely paid attention by researchers.Spatial-numerical association representation is that number are generally represented in space from left to right,that is,relatively smaller numbers are linked to the left space,while relatively larger numbers are linked to the right space.Relative spatial position refers to the relative positional relationship(left-right relationship)between individuals in joint actions.In recent years,it has been found that relative spatial position has an impact on spatial-numerical association representation.Spatial reference frame refers to the way in which individuals represent their spatial orientation.Previous studies have shown that when individuals’ spatial reference consciousness is activated,the spatial-numerical association representation will change.So what role will the body’s relative spatial position and spatial reference frame play in the spatial-numerical association representation? In order to reveal the above problems,the present research designed three studies,a total of four experiments,to explore the effect of relative spatial position on the spatial-numerical association representation in joint action,and further investigate the role of spatial reference frame in spatial-numerical association representation.The discussion of these issues can expand the connotation of numerical processing in the social environment,and help to enrich the theoretical explanation of spatial-numerical association representation.The first study consisted of two experiments,in which familiar subjects and unfamiliar subjects were selected to investigate the effects of body relative spatial position and spatial reference frame on spatial-numerical association representation.In Experiment 1,in order to explore the influence of the relative spatial position of the body on the spatial-numerical association representation in the joint action,a 2(body relative position:left,right)× 2(position change time: before,after)two-factor mixed experimental design was adopted.21 pairs students who were familiar with each other were selected as subjects,and each pair was required to complete the joint random number generation task together.The results show that the main effect of relative spatial location is not significant.The main effect of position change time was not significant.The interaction between the two is not significant.In Experiment 2,in order to verify the influence of inter-individual familiarity on the spatial-numerical association representation,the same two-factor mixed experimental design was adopted in Experiment 1.25 pairs of students who were unfamiliar with each other were selected as subjects,and each pair was required to complete the joint random number generation task together.The results show that the main effect of relative spatial location is not significant.The main effect of position change time was significant,that is,the mean value of random numbers before switching position was significantly smaller than that after switching position.The interaction between the two is not significant.In Study 2,in order to reveal the effect of co-actor verbal report on individual random number magnitude in joint action,the study adopted a 2(body relative position: left,right)× 2(position change time: before,after)two-factor mixed experimental design,selection of 32 students as subjects and 1 false subject,every true subject with false subject matching,also let the true and false subjects of joint random number generation task together.The results show that the main effect of relative spatial location is significant,that is,the mean value of random number on the left position is significantly greater than that on the right position.The main effect of position change time was not significant.The interaction between the two is not significant.In Study 3,in order to investigate the effect of the activation of spatial reference frame on spatial-numerical association representation,the present study adopted a 2(body relative position: left,right)× 2(position change time: before,after)two-factor mixed experimental design,selection of 31 students as the subjects,requiring single subject in left and right position for a single random number generation task.The results show that the main effect of relative spatial location is significant,that is,the mean value of random number on the left is significantly smaller than the mean value of random number on the right.The main effect of position change time was not significant.The interaction between the two is not significant.The study drew the following conclusions:(1)In the joint action,when individuals and co-actor completed the random number generation task,the familiarity between individuals did not affect the spatial-numerical association representation.(2)After controlling the co-actor’s counting behavior,it is proved that individuals will be affected by the co-actor’s verbal counting behavior,so as to mask the real numerical spatial bias effect.(3)When the individual’s spatial reference consciousness was only activated in the single person condition,the numerical spatial bias effect caused by the relative spatial position(left and right position)still appeared.This result proved that the effect did not require social interaction,and it also existed in single person condition.Moreover,the effect is enhanced after the exchange of positions,which indicates that the spatial reference frame plays a key role in the spatial-numerical association representation.