Premium
The Faulty Magnitude Detector: Why SNARC‐Like Tasks Cannot Support a Generalized Magnitude System
Author(s) -
Casasanto Daniel,
Pitt Benjamin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1111/cogs.12794
Subject(s) - magnitude (astronomy) , association (psychology) , cognitive psychology , space (punctuation) , variation (astronomy) , computer science , task (project management) , psychology , physics , management , astronomy , astrophysics , economics , psychotherapist , operating system
Do people represent space, time, number, and other conceptual domains using a generalized magnitude system (GMS)? To answer this question, numerous studies have used the spatial‐numerical association of response codes (SNARC) task and its variants. Yet, for a combination of reasons, SNARC‐like effects cannot provide evidence for a GMS, even in principle. Rather, these effects support a broader theory of how people use space metaphorically to scaffold their understanding of myriad non‐spatial domains, whether or not these domains exhibit variation in magnitude.