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Numerical magnitude affects online execution, and not planning of visuomotor control

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Abstract

Recent literature has established a directional influence of irrelevant numerical magnitude on actions performed toward neutral objects. For example, fingers’ aperture during grasping is larger when associated with large compared with small numerical digits. This interaction between symbolic magnitude and visuomotor control has been attributed to the planning stage of the action prior to motor execution. However, this assumption has not been directly tested. In two experiments, we tested whether the effects of numerical magnitude on grasping derive from action planning or from action execution. Participants were asked to grasp an object following a short visual (Experiment 1) or auditory (Experiment 2) presentation of small (1/2) or large (8/9) digits. Grasping was performed under either closed-loop (CL) or open-loop (OL) visuomotor control, for which online vision was prevented during action execution. Digit magnitude affected grip apertures in the CL condition, when online vision was allowed. However, magnitude had no effects on grip aperture in the OL condition. This pattern of results strongly suggests that the processing of numerical magnitude originates from interactions between numerical magnitude and real object size during online motor execution. Unlike previously assumed, the findings also suggest that the effect of magnitude on visuomotor control is not likely to be attributed to the motor planning stage prior to action initiation.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Keren Berger for her help in running the experiments and Daniel Algom for his help and advice. This study was supported by an Israel Science Foundation (ISF) grant 640/12 to Tzvi Ganel and Daniel Algom.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, 8410500, Israel

    Gal Namdar & Tzvi Ganel

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  1. Gal Namdar
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  2. Tzvi Ganel
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Correspondence to Tzvi Ganel.

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Funding

This study was funded by an Israel Science Foundation (ISF) grant 640/12 to Tzvi Ganel and Daniel Algom.

Conflict of interest

Tzvi Ganel declares that he has no conflict of interest. Gal Namdar declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Psychology Department research committee in BGU and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Namdar, G., Ganel, T. Numerical magnitude affects online execution, and not planning of visuomotor control. Psychological Research 82, 488–495 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-016-0837-3

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