Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25476998›Full record

ArticlePsychological research2015

Spatial coding of object typical size: evidence for a SNARC-like effect.

Roberta Sellaro, Barbara Treccani, Remo Job, Roberto Cubelli

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Article in Psychological research, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
31citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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  6. A SNARC-like effect for visual speed.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2025
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Roberta SellaroInstitute for Psychological Research, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands. r.sellaro@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.
Barbara TreccaniDepartment of History, Human Sciences and Education, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy. btreccani@uniss.it.
Remo JobDepartment of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
Roberto CubelliDepartment of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The present study aimed to assess whether the representation of the typical size of objects can interact with response position codes in two-choice bimanual tasks, and give rise to a SNARC-like effect (faster responses when the representation of the typical size of the object to which the target stimulus refers corresponds to response side). Participants performed either a magnitude comparison task (in which they were required to judge whether the target was smaller or larger than a reference stimulus; Experiment 1) or a semantic decision task (in which they had to classify the target as belonging to either the category of living or non-living entities; Experiment 2). Target stimuli were pictures or written words referring to either typically large and small animals or inanimate objects. In both tasks, participants responded by pressing a left- or right-side button. Results showed that, regardless of the to-be-performed task (magnitude comparison or semantic decision) and stimulus format (picture or word), left responses were faster when the target represented typically small-sized entities, whereas right responses were faster for typically large-sized entities. These results provide evidence that the information about the typical size of objects is activated even if it is not requested by the task, and are consistent with the idea that objects' typical size is automatically spatially coded, as has been proposed to occur for number magnitudes. In this representation, small objects would be on the left and large objects would be on the right. Alternative interpretations of these results are also discussed.

Indexed as

Functional LateralityJudgmentOrientationPattern Recognition, VisualProblem SolvingPsychomotor PerformanceReaction TimeSemanticsSize PerceptionDecision MakingFemaleHumansMaleYoung Adult

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.