Snarc Presentation
-
Upload
cal100 -
Category
Technology
-
view
119 -
download
0
Transcript of Snarc Presentation
+
The Development of the SNARC Effect in 5- to 9-Year-Old Children
Claire Lenehan
+The SNARC Effect
Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes
Humans have an internal spatial representation of numbers
Numbers are associated with left-right coordinates
Dependent on cultural and experiential factors
+Discovery of the SNARC Effect
First discovered by Dehaene et al. (1990, 1993)
Detected through a parity judgment task
Response times are faster on the left for small numbers and the right for larger numbers
Magnitude is not necessary for deciding parity, but numerical magnitude is activated automatically
Even Odd
2
Even Odd
1
Odd Even
8
Odd Even
9
+The SNARC Effect in Children
The SNARC effect has been found in American children as early as Grade 3
The effect increases with age (Berch et al., 1999)
Chinese kindergarteners children display the SNARC effect (Yang et al., 2013)
These studies have employed parity tasks, which require automatic numerical magnitude activation
+Van Galen and Reitsma
Employed two different tasks to investigate the presence of the SNARC effect in 7-, 8- and 9-year-old children Gray box detection task Magnitude judgment task
Found that 9-year-old children displayed the SNARC effect on both tasks
7- and 8-year-old children displayed the SNARC effect only on the magnitude judgment task
+Current Study
Adaptation of van Galen and Reitsma’s magnitude task
Goals To determine whether the SNARC effect is present before age 7 To compare the strength of the SNARC effect at different ages
Van Galen and Reitsma did not test children under age 7, but suggested that the SNARC effect would be present as soon as children had mastered the meaning of Arabic numerals
It is expected that all participants will display the SNARC effect, and that the effect will be stronger in older children
+Participants
Four participants Participant 1
Male, Age 5 years 10 months Participant 2
Male, Age 6 years Participant 3
Male, Age 9 years 2 months Participant 4
Male, Age 9 years 4 months
+Procedure
Children were tested individually in their homes
Participants were instructed that, for the purpose of this experiment, numbers smaller than 5 were “small numbers” and numbers greater than 5 were “big numbers”
Flashcards were used to ensure that all participants understood which numbers belonged to which group
Instructions were given orally, then children completed the magnitude task on a laptop computer
+Magnitude Task
PsychoPy software was used to create a magnitude task
Stimuli were the Arabic numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9
Participants responded to whether numbers were “Big” or “Small” by pressing designated response keys
The left key was blue and the right key was yellow
There were two blocks of trials, each consisting of 24 or 40 trials preceded by 8 practice trials
+Magnitude Task
Block A Congruent task
“Small” appeared on the left side of the screen in blue “Big” appeared on the right side of the screen in yellow
Block B Incongruent task
“Big” appeared on the left side of the screen in blue “Small” appeared on the the right side of the screen in
yellow
Two participants completed Block A first and two started with Block B
+Results
Block A Block B Difference
Participant 1 1.1847 1.3362 0.1514
Participant 2 0.9739 1.0583 0.0844
Participant 3 1.0063 1.1774 0.1711
Participant 4 0.9994 1.1669 0.1675
Average Response Time (seconds)
+Statistics
A paired two-sample t-test was used to compare the response times in Block A vs. Block B
t = 5.1682, p < .05
An unpaired two-sample t-test was used to compare the results of the 9-year-olds with those of the 5- and 6-year-olds
t = 1.5321, p > .05
+Conclusions
The participants displayed the SNARC effect
Age did not play a significant role in the strength of the effect
+Limitations
The small number of participants makes it difficult to compare children of different ages
The limited number of trials makes it impossible to analyze the results for individual numbers
No gender differences have been found between adults, but there could be differences between boys and girls
The participants may not be representative of the general population
+Questions?