Uncanny sums and products may prompt “wise choices”: Semantic misalignment and numerical judgments
Author(s) / Creator(s)
Brown, Ethan C.
Mazzocco, Michèle M. M.
Rinne, Luke F.
Scanlon, Noah S.
Abstract / Description
Automatized arithmetic can interfere with numerical judgments, and semantic misalignment may diminish this interference. We gave 92 adults two numerical priming tasks that involved semantic misalignment. We found that misalignment either facilitated or reversed arithmetic interference effects, depending on misalignment type. On our number matching task, digit pairs (as primes for sums) appeared with nouns that were either categorically aligned and concrete (e.g., pigs, goats), categorically misaligned and concrete (e.g., eels, webs), or categorically misaligned concrete and intangible (e.g., goats, tactics). Next, participants were asked whether a target digit matched either member of the previously presented digit pair. Participants were slower to reject sum vs. neutral targets on aligned/concrete and misaligned/concrete trials, but unexpectedly slower to reject neutral versus sum targets on misaligned/concrete-intangible trials. Our sentence verification task also elicited unexpected facilitation effects. Participants read a cue sentence that contained two digits, then evaluated whether a subsequent target statement was true or false. When target statements included the product of the two preceding digits, this inhibited accepting correct targets and facilitated rejecting incorrect targets, although only when semantic context did not support arithmetic. These novel findings identify a potentially facilitative role of arithmetic in semantically misaligned contexts and highlight the complex role of contextual factors in numerical processing.
Keyword(s)
priming arithmetic context semantic alignmentPersistent Identifier
Date of first publication
2016-08-05
Journal title
Journal of Numerical Cognition
Volume
2
Issue
2
Page numbers
116–139
Publisher
PsychOpen GOLD
Publication status
publishedVersion
Review status
peerReviewed
Is version of
Citation
Brown, E. C., Mazzocco, M. M. M., Rinne, L. F., & Scanlon, N. S. (2016). Uncanny sums and products may prompt “wise choices”: Semantic misalignment and numerical judgments. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 2(2), 116–139. https://doi.org/10.5964/jnc.v2i2.21
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jnc.v2i2.21.pdfAdobe PDF - 1.29MBMD5: 585be5ac44292afb3e17c5c2f01b6c1b
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There are no other versions of this object.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Brown, Ethan C.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Mazzocco, Michèle M. M.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Rinne, Luke F.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Scanlon, Noah S.
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PsychArchives acquisition timestamp2018-11-21T11:42:40Z
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Made available on2018-11-21T11:42:40Z
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Date of first publication2016-08-05
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Abstract / DescriptionAutomatized arithmetic can interfere with numerical judgments, and semantic misalignment may diminish this interference. We gave 92 adults two numerical priming tasks that involved semantic misalignment. We found that misalignment either facilitated or reversed arithmetic interference effects, depending on misalignment type. On our number matching task, digit pairs (as primes for sums) appeared with nouns that were either categorically aligned and concrete (e.g., pigs, goats), categorically misaligned and concrete (e.g., eels, webs), or categorically misaligned concrete and intangible (e.g., goats, tactics). Next, participants were asked whether a target digit matched either member of the previously presented digit pair. Participants were slower to reject sum vs. neutral targets on aligned/concrete and misaligned/concrete trials, but unexpectedly slower to reject neutral versus sum targets on misaligned/concrete-intangible trials. Our sentence verification task also elicited unexpected facilitation effects. Participants read a cue sentence that contained two digits, then evaluated whether a subsequent target statement was true or false. When target statements included the product of the two preceding digits, this inhibited accepting correct targets and facilitated rejecting incorrect targets, although only when semantic context did not support arithmetic. These novel findings identify a potentially facilitative role of arithmetic in semantically misaligned contexts and highlight the complex role of contextual factors in numerical processing.en_US
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Publication statuspublishedVersion
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Review statuspeerReviewed
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CitationBrown, E. C., Mazzocco, M. M. M., Rinne, L. F., & Scanlon, N. S. (2016). Uncanny sums and products may prompt “wise choices”: Semantic misalignment and numerical judgments. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 2(2), 116–139. https://doi.org/10.5964/jnc.v2i2.21en_US
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ISSN2363-8761
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Persistent Identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12034/1238
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Persistent Identifierhttps://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.1430
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Language of contenteng
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PublisherPsychOpen GOLD
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Is version ofhttps://doi.org/10.5964/jnc.v2i2.21
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Keyword(s)primingen_US
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Keyword(s)arithmeticen_US
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Keyword(s)contexten_US
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Keyword(s)semantic alignmenten_US
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Dewey Decimal Classification number(s)150
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TitleUncanny sums and products may prompt “wise choices”: Semantic misalignment and numerical judgmentsen_US
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DRO typearticle
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Issue2
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Journal titleJournal of Numerical Cognition
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Page numbers116–139
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Volume2
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Visible tag(s)Version of Record