ArticleCognition2017
Spontaneous, modality-general abstraction of a ratio scale.
Article in Cognition, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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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.
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.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Math language matters: math-specific verbal skills, not analog representation of non-symbolic magnitudes, predict symbolic fraction abilities in primary school children.Journal of experimental child psychology · 2025Article
- Cognitive bridge between geometric and numerical learning in monkeys.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- How is visual separation assessed? By counting distance units.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Ranking-space: magnitude makes sense through spatially scaffolded ranking.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Circling around number: People can accurately extract numeric values from circle area ratios.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2022Article
- Auditory and visual short-term memory: influence of material type, contour, and musical expertise.Psychological research · 2022Article
- Cross-dimensional magnitude interaction is modulated by representational noise: evidence from space-time interaction.Psychological research · 2022Article
- Ratio-based perceptual foundations for rational numbers, and perhaps whole numbers, too?The Behavioral and brain sciences · 2021Article
- More than the sum of its parts: Exploring the development of ratio magnitude versus simple magnitude perception.Developmental science · 2021Article
- Symbolic fractions elicit an analog magnitude representation in school-age children.Journal of experimental child psychology · 2020Article
- Number, time, and space are not singularly represented: Evidence against a common magnitude system beyond early childhood.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2019Review
- Article
- Cross-magnitude interactions across development: Longitudinal evidence for a general magnitude system.Developmental science · 2019Article
- Task Constraints Affect Mapping From Approximate Number System Estimates to Symbolic Numbers.Frontiers in psychology · 2018Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The existence of a generalized magnitude system in the human mind and brain has been studied extensively but remains elusive because it has not been clearly defined. Here we show that one possibility is the representation of relative magnitudes via ratio calculations: ratios are a naturally dimensionless or abstract quantity that could qualify as a common currency for magnitudes measured on vastly different psychophysical scales and in different sensory modalities like size, number, duration, and loudness. In a series of demonstrations based on comparisons of item sequences, we demonstrate that subjects spontaneously use knowledge of inter-item ratios within and across sensory modalities and across magnitude domains to rate sequences as more or less similar on a sliding scale. Moreover, they rate ratio-preserved sequences as more similar to each other than sequences in which only ordinal relations are preserved, indicating that subjects are aware of differences in levels of relative-magnitude information preservation. The ubiquity of this ability across many different magnitude pairs, even those sharing no sensory information, suggests a highly general code that could qualify as a candidate for a generalized magnitude representation.
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Registered trials
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.