GENERAL COMMENTARY published: 01 December 2014 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01381 Attentional cueing in numerical cognition Martin H. Fischer 1* and André Knops 2 1 Division of Cognitive Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam - Golm, Germany 2 Emmy Noether Research Group Leader, Department of Psychology, Humboldt-University Berlin, Berlin, Germany *Correspondence: [email protected] Edited by: Roberta Sellaro, Leiden University, Netherlands Reviewed by: Mario Bonato, Ghent University, Belgium Barbara Treccani, University of Sassari, Italy Keywords: attention, number line, SNARC effect, visual perception, response selection A commentary on EDAN and ADAN (Ranzini et al., 2009) cortex (Hubbard et al., 2005). Knops et al. Recent evidence suggests that these ERP- (2009) applied machine learning algo- Number-induced shifts in spatial correlates of number-induced attentional rithms to the BOLD-activity of PSPC to attention: a replication study cueing are not restricted to mere detection classify left from right saccades. Crucially, by Zanolie, K., and Pecher, D. tasks but generalize to color discrimi- without further training this classifier (2014). Front. Psychol. 5:987. doi: nation (Schuller et al., 2014). Moreover, successfully distinguished mental addi- 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00987 number-induced attention shifts in EEG tion and subtraction, equating addition signatures even without behavioral bias, as and subtraction with rightward and left- Fischer et al. (2003) discovered that non- in the Ranzini et al. (2009) study, can be ward saccades, respectively. These results informative central numerical cues induce interpreted as strong replications and not a all substantiate the functional role of attention shifts: In accordance with a spa- problem. Attentional effects of SNAs have attention shifts in numerical cognition due tially organized mental number line, small, been documented in children (e.g., van to SNAs. and large numbers facilitated detection of Galen and Reitsma, 2008), adults (Dodd, Given these replications, extensions, targets in the left and right visual hemi- 2011), and synesthetes (Jarick et al., 2009). and conceptual convergence, why did fields, respectively. Zanolie and Pecher Finally, SNA-driven attentional biases have Z&P fail to replicate the original effect? (2014, henceforth Z&P) failed to observe recently been generalized into mental Leaving aside the misleading visualization this pattern in 5 of 6 replication attempts arithmetic (Masson and Pesenti, 2014). of their method (see corrigendum, doi: and concluded that “the mental number The hypothesis that number magnitude 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01206), one method- line is not activated automatically but at biases spatial attention is attractive because ological problem resides with Z&P’s best only when it is contextually relevant.” this converges with neuroscience facts to decision to obtain evidence for num- We briefly describe the current under- explain behavior. For example, healthy ber processing from manual key presses. standing of spatial-numerical associations adults bisect digit strings made of small, or Participants pressed buttons to indicate (SNAs) before identifying aspects of Z&P’s largenumberstotheleftorrightofcen- digit parity (in Experiments 2 and 5) study that might explain their failure to ter, respectively (Fischer, 2001; Calabria or magnitude (in Experiments 3 and replicate the attentional cueing effect of and Rossetti, 2005). Bisection tasks are, 6); such responses were not required in numbers. in turn, a standard assessment procedure the original study. Response prepara- In addition to two successful repli- for parietal lobe function (Bonato et al., tion was then possible as soon as digits cations acknowledged by Z&P (and a 2008). Areas in posterior superior pari- were identified, thus inducing system- replication within the original paper), etal cortex (PSPC) are involved in shift- atic attention shifts for left and right number-induced attentional biases were ing spatial attention and planning saccade responses that could be either congruent also found by several other labs (for ref- targets. PSPC is densely interconnected or incongruent with the magnitude- erences, see Fischer and Shaki, 2014,p. with the more anteriorly located hori- related bias (e.g., Eimer et al., 2005). 1465). The effect has been extended to zontal aspect of the intraparietal sulcus Although reporting digits after a trial can neuroscientific measures, such as modula- (hIPS) which processes numerical mag- improve the chance of finding SNAs (e.g., tions of neural activity in occipital cortex nitudes (Nieder and Dehaene, 2009; Eger Casarotti et al., 2007), averaging across as measured with functional magnetic res- et al., 2014). Basic mathematical opera- the manual response conditions dilutes onance imaging (Goffaux et al., 2014), or tions may be neurally implemented via effects of digit presentation on atten- increased P1 and P3 amplitudes in EEG functional interactions between hIPS and tion allocation. This concern pertains, (Sallilas et al., 2008),anditisalsoreflected PSPC and their connection to left peri- however, only to 4 of the 6 experiments. in attention-related ERP-components sylvian language areas as well as frontal Thus, there must be other reasons for www.frontiersin.org December 2014 | Volume 5 | Article 1381 | 1 Fischer and Knops Attentional cueing in numerical cognition why Z&P failed to replicate the original number magnitude is indeed subtle and 3419–3428. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012. results. context-dependent but remains a valu- 09.046 Relatively large samples, as tested by able additional tool for investigating Hubbard, E. M., Piazza, M., Pinel, P., and Dehaene, S. (2005). Interactions between number and space in Z&P, do indeed increase statistical sensi- conceptual knowledge. parietal cortex. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 6, 435–448. doi: tivity but also heterogeneity with respect 10.1038/nrn1684 to SNAs: Strength and automaticity of ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Jarick, M., Dixon, M. J., Maxwell, E. C., Nicholls, SNAs covary with age and learning history Martin H. Fischer is sponsored by DFG M. E., and Smilek, D. (2009). The ups and (cf. Wood et al., 2008; Fischer and Shaki, grant 1915/3-1 Action-driven Attention. downs (and lefts and rights) of synaesthetic num- ber forms: validation from spatial cueing and 2014). For example, finger counting is André Knops is sponsored by DFG grant SNARC-type tasks. Cortex 45, 1190–1199. doi: more left-associated in Canada compared KN 959/2-1. 10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.015 to Holland (where the original and repli- Knops, A., Piazza, M., Sengupta, R., Eger, E., and cation studies were conducted; Lindemann REFERENCES Melcher, D. (2014). 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