Date created: 2019-09-17 07:27 PM | Last Updated: 2022-06-29 11:32 PM

Category: Project

Description: Non-numeric stimulus features frequently influence observers’ number judgments: when judging the number of items in a display, we will often (mis)perceive the set with smaller dots as being more numerous. These “congruency effects” are often used to investigate how vision extracts numeric information. We test whether congruency effects between number and cumulative area are the result of: (a) cumulative area cues being necessarily used and integrated in number perception; (b) a rational use of prior experiences about how number naturalistically correlates with cumulative area; or (c) response conflicts, with number and cumulative area actively competing for the same behavioral decision, but with no other interaction during perception. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate that the presence of feedback eliminates congruency effects, suggesting that they are malleable rather than obligatory. In Experiment 2, we preserve cumulative area as a visual cue but eliminate response conflicts with number by replacing one side of the dot array with its corresponding Hindu-Arabic numeral. Independent of the presence or absence of feedback, we do not observe congruency effects in Experiment 2, suggesting that congruency effects only emerge when response conflicts are possible during number perception. These experiments suggest that congruency effects for number and cumulative area are neither necessarily integrated nor a reflection of a rational use of naturalistic correlations, but are the consequence of response competition. Our findings help to elucidate the mechanism through which non-numeric cues and number interact, and provide an explanation for why congruency effects are only sometimes observed across studies.