ArticlePsychological research2024
One direction? Cultural aspects of the mental number line beyond reading direction.
Article in Psychological research, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Neural networks underlying magnitude perception: a specific meta-analysis of fMRI studies.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Pooled it
- Changing speed along the mental line: A SNARC-like effect for visual acceleration.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Article
- Flexibility in abstract thought: Context-dependent representations of integer magnitude.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- Exploring foot-based SNARC effect by hand posture: insights from embodied cognition.Cognitive processing · 2026Article
- Measuring SNARC effect: different task setups reveal divergent spatial-numerical associations.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Culture shapes the SNARC-like effect for visual speed.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Article
- The role of cognitive control in the interaction of the SNARC and MARC effects.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Does the Brain Care Which Direction We Read? A Cross-Cultural tDCS Study on Functional Lateralization of Number Processing.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Spatial-Numerical Associations (SNAs) refer to the demonstrations of spatial processing of numbers. The Mental Number Line (MNL) is a representation model describing numbers as aligning left-to-right (LR) and was suggested to account for directional biases in participants' responses during numerical tasks. One common behavioral demonstration of this is the Spatial-Numerical Associations of Response Codes (SNARC) effect, which describes faster left-/right-hand responses to smaller/larger numbers, respectively. The MNL, and, consequently, directional SNAs, show variabilities across different cultures. Reading direction is considered to be the main factor in explaining these differences. In line with this, individuals with right-to-left (RL) reading habits show a weaker or even reverse SNARC effect. In the present study, we investigated whether SNAs are influenced not only by reading direction, but also by cultural directional preferences such as drawing lines, arranging objects, imagining objects (i.e., rightward or leftward facing), or representing events in time (i.e., mentally representing the past/future on the left/right, respectively). To test this hypothesis, we measured the cultural directional preferences and the SNARC effect across three cultures in an online setup; German, Turkish, and Iranian. LR preferences in the Cultural Directional Preferences Questionnaire were most prominent in German participants, intermediate in Turkish participants, and least prominent in Iranian participants. In line with this, the LR SNARC effect was strongest in German, intermediate in Turkish, and weakest (but not RL) in Iranian culture. These findings suggest that cultural directional preferences are involved in the emergence of adult SNAs in addition to the reading direction.
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