Psychology Seminar Series - (How) are space, numbers and math linked? Recent insights from the SNARC effect in young children

The classical SNARC effect reflects the observation that, in binary-choice reaction time tasks on numbers, participants from Western cultures respond faster to small/large numbers with the left/right side, respectively. This has been considered as behavioural evidence for number-space associations, typically attributed to the spatial mental representation of numerical magnitude. The intuitive idea that the use of space as a building block for numerical representations is underlying math skills has sparked interest in research about a potential functional link. Could the SNARC effect prove useful in the diagnosis of math difficulties and the training of math skills? Unfortunately, the pattern of results is far from conclusive. While some positive and negative relations between the SNARC effect and math skills have been reported in children and adults, respectively, most studies did not find a significant link. We recently tested 135 kindergarten children performing magnitude judgments to assess not only group-level SNARC effects but also the prevalence of individual consistency using the same methodology recently applied in adults (Cipora et al., 2019). While the SNARC effect was significant at the group level, only 37% of the children consistently associated numbers with space in a left-to-right direction when considering CIs around observed effects. When reassessing the same children one year later in first grade, no overall SNARC effect was present. Moreover, Kindergarten children’s SNARC slope did not relate to their math abilities. Taken together, these results indicate that the SNARC effect might be better interpreted as a cognitive state or momentary strategy, rather than a trait reflecting the underlying quality of a spatial-numerical representation.