The Number Line Effect Reflects Top-Down Control

Ristic, Jelena, Wright, Alissa, Kingstone, Alan, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

Recent evidence indicates that central directional stimuli, such as eyes and arrows, trigger rapid, reflexive shifts of spatial attention. A study by Fischer, Castel, Dodd, and Pratt (2003) suggested that a similar effect might also apply to central numbers, as if a digit's meaning causes attention to be oriented to its relative position on a left-to-right mental number line. However, unlike central eyes and arrows, the orienting effect for central digits emerges slowly, suggesting that top-down endogenous processes may be mediating this effect. Here, we report a series of three experiments that strongly support this hypothesis. Experiment 1 replicated Fischer et al.'s left-to-right …

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Publication information: Article title: The Number Line Effect Reflects Top-Down Control. Contributors: Ristic, Jelena - Author, Wright, Alissa - Author, Kingstone, Alan - Author. Journal title: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Volume: 13. Issue: 5 Publication date: October 2006. Page number: 862+. © Psychonomic Society, Inc. Feb 2009. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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