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cortex 44 (2008) 386392

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Special issue: Original article

Finger counting habits modulate spatial-numerical associations

Martin H. Fischer*
School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, UK

article info
Article history: Received 5 April 2007 Reviewed 11 July 2007 Accepted 21 August 2007 Published online 23 December 2007 Keywords: Finger counting Mental number line SNARC effect

abstract
This study explored the contribution of nger counting habits to the association of numbers with space (the SNARC effect). First, a questionnaire study indicated that two-thirds of 445 adults started counting on their left hand, regardless of their handedness. Secondly, a group of 53 left-starters but not a group of 47 right-starters showed a SNARC effect in a parity task. A signicant difference in the strength of the effect between groups suggests that nger counting habits indeed contribute to the association between numbers and space in adults. 2007 Elsevier Masson Srl. All rights reserved.

1.

Introduction

Several studies have reported a cognitive association of small numbers with left space and larger numbers with right space, both in normal and in neurologically impaired populations (see Fias and Fischer, 2005 for review and Wood et al., submitted for publication for a recent meta-analysis of the literature). The original report of this association (Dehaene et al., 1993, Experiment 1) measured speeded parity judgments for single digits from 09, varying the response rule (even digit left button, or even digit right button) in healthy participants. A signicant interaction of response side with number magnitude signaled that large numbers were answered about 30 msec faster to the right than to the left, and the converse was true for small numbers (Dehaene et al., 1993, p. 375). This observation was dubbed the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect. The effect is taken as evidence that small numbers are represented on the left side

and larger numbers further on the right side along a spatially oriented mental number line. Support for the idea of a spatial representation of numbers comes from several studies. For example, Fischer (2001) showed that healthy observers mis-bisect the midpoints of digit strings (e.g., 11111 or 99999) to the left or right of their true center when the strings are made from small or large digits, respectively. Zorzi et al. (2002) asked hemineglect patients, who bisected visual lines to the right of their true center, to estimate the midpoints of numerical intervals and found systematic biases towards larger numbers. However, recent dissociations between physical and mental bisection (Doricchi et al., 2005) and evidence for preserved number processing in some neglect patients (Zorzi et al., 2006; Cappelletti and Cipolotti, 2006) indicate that the interpretation of similarities between spatial biases in perception and number representation is still under debate. Number skills can be impaired after damage to various brain areas. For example, left frontal lesions often affect exact

* School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK. E-mail address: m.h.scher@dundee.ac.uk 0010-9452/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier Masson Srl. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2007.08.004

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calculation whereas parietal damage can affect approximation (e.g., Lemer et al., 2003). A particularly well-known example of impaired number skills after parietal lobe damage is the Gerstmann syndrome, which encompasses dyscalculia, agraphia, nger agnosia, and leftright confusions (Gerstmann, 1940; for critical review see Dehaene et al., 2003). Given the cooccurrence of spatial and numerical decits, effective rehabilitation of dyscalculia might benet from understanding the origin of the spatial representation of numbers. The typical SNARC effect associates small numbers (which are used at the start of counting) with the left side of space, which is also the starting place when reading a line of text. This is why the SNARC effect was initially believed to originate from directional reading habits spilling over into number processing. Despite initial support for this idea there is now considerable evidence against reading habits as the sole inuence on the SNARC effect in adults (see the Editorial to this Special issue for details). An alternative explanation for the SNARC effect could be that nger counting habits establish the association of numbers with space during childhood. Finger counting is a universal means of learning to deal with numbers: All children spontaneously discover that their ngers can be put into one-to-one correspondence with any set of items (Dehaene, 1997, p. 93; see also Fuson, 1988 and Butterworth, 1999, chapter 5). Moreover, nger discrimination skills in 5-year olds are a good predictor of their future arithmetic performance (Fayol et al., 1998; Noel, 2005) and training of nger discrimination improves numerical skills (Gracia-Bafalluy and Noel, 2008, this issue). The origin of numerical skills in nger counting is an example of embodied cognition, i.e., the fact that cognition is fundamentally shaped by the interactions of the human body with its environment (e.g., Wilson, 2002; Gibbs, 2006). Thus, it would be plausible to expect that the habitual association of ones ngers with space while counting during childhood leads to the pervasive SNARC effect (e.g. Berch et al., 1999; Opfer and Thompson, 2006), especially if it is consistent with other spatial problem solving strategies, such as reading or searching. In support of the idea of manumerical cognition, abacus experts show spontaneous hand movements during mental arithmetic (Hatano et al., 1977), and there is some overlap between brain regions for nger and number processing (e.g., Thompson et al., 2004; see also Kaufmann et al., 2008, this issue). As pointed out by Hubbard et al. (2005), the manumerical cognition hypothesis could thus also explain why nger agnosia, leftright confusion and dyscalculia often co-occur in the Gerstmann syndrome. Other recent studies also reveal links between numerical and manual cognition: parity classication of numbers with grip aperture responses is faster when number magnitude and grip aperture are congruent (Andres et al., 2004; see also Andres et al., 2008, this issue), and corticospinal excitability in the dominant hand was increased when enumerating objects (Andres et al., 2007). In the context of spatial-numerical associations, the manumerical cognition hypothesis predicts that a majority of adults in any western culture should prefer to start counting with the ngers of their left hand, thus habitually associating the smaller digits 15 with left space. This counting preference would explain the directional SNARC effect in adults. Unfortunately, there appears to be little published information on

nger counting habits in adults, and no current documentation of the teaching (or indeed the suppression) of nger counting strategies in schools. Over a century ago, Conant (1896/1960, p. 437f.) reported that from 206 children aged 48 from public schools in Worcester/Massachusetts, almost all began to count with their left hand and that this left-preference remained in an older cohort. Recently, however, two studies reported the opposite association: rst, Italian adults who started counting on their right hand classied digits fastest when each digit was assigned to the nger they normally used during nger counting (Di Luca et al., 2006). Secondly, corticospinal excitability in the right hand of normal adults increased when processing numbers 14 compared to numbers 69 (Sato et al., 2007). However, participants in these studies were specically selected for their nger counting habits, and systematic nger counting differences between different western cultures may also exist. Clearly, more data from adults are needed to assess the hypothesis that nger counting habits can account for the origin and direction of the SNARC effect.

2.

Study 1: nger counting questionnaire

The goal of this study was to determine the current prevalence of nger counting habits in a specic western culture, namely Scotland. A preference for starting to count with the left hand would provide support for the idea that nger counting habits might contribute to the SNARC effect.

2.1.

Materials

A one-page questionnaire was used to collect the data (see Fig. 1). In the upper region of the page, a schematic drawing of two supine hands (thumbs pointing outwards) was printed, together with the instruction to imagine counting with ones ngers from 1 to 10 and then to write the corresponding number next to each nger. Further below 12 questions asked whether the respondent would use the left, right, or either hand to complete an everyday activity (after Coren, 1993). At the bottom of the page, three further questions asked for the respondents age, gender, and native language.

2.2.

Procedure

The questionnaire was administered in several undergraduate psychology lectures at two universities in Dundee/Scotland, as well as in a pedestrian shopping area in the city of Dundee. Well over 400 students from different cohorts, who had not been taught about the SNARC effect, completed and returned the printed form at the start of their class. They were free to either imagine or perform the nger count. The remaining data were collected from pedestrians who were randomly approached by a research assistant if they were not carrying anything in their hands. The assistant asked each person to demonstrate how they count from 1 to 10 with their ngers and noted all responses.

2.3.

Results

A total of 550 questionnaires were collected and electronically coded. The specic number-to-nger assignments were

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QUESTIONNAIRE
Thank you for volunteering your time for our research. This questionnaire is very simple and takes only about 2 minutes to complete. Task 1: Imagine how you would count with your fingers from 1 to 10. Please write the numbers next to the corresponding fingers of the two hands below.

Task 2: Now read each question and check the column corresponding to your answer. Question With which hand do you normally write? With which hand do you draw? Which hand would you use to throw a ball to hit a target? In which hand do you use your racquet for tennis, squash etc? With which hand do you use your toothbrush? Which hand holds a knife when you are cutting things? Which hand holds the hammer when you are driving a nail? In which hand would you hold a match to strike it? In which hand would you use an eraser on paper? Which hand removes the top card when you deal from a deck? Which hand holds the thread when you thread a needle? In which hand would you hold a fly swatter? Please write down your native language: _________ How old are you? ___ YEARS Are you male or female? ____ M ____ F Thats it. Thank you for your participation! Please return the completed questionnaire.
Fig. 1 Questionnaire used in Study 2. This document is available from the author upon request.

Left

Right

Either

recorded (e.g., whether the thumb or index nger was used for the number one, see below) but not the preferred hand orientation. The data from written questionnaires and from actual performance records were merged without keeping a record of their origin. Data from 105 respondents were not considered further in the present analysis because they did not report English/Scottish as their native language (thus reducing possible complications from misunderstanding questions and from non-western reading habits) or did not respond to all questions posed. The remaining 445 respondents consisted of 142 males and 303 females with an average age of 24 years. Consider rst the hand preference scores. Handedness was determined as follows: each left response was given a score of one, each either response a score of two, and each right response a score of three. Given the 12 questions, the scores

ranged between 12 and 36. Respondents were classied as right-handers when they achieved a score >28 (moderately or strongly right-handed), as left-handers when they achieved a score <20 (moderately or strongly left-handed), and as ambidextrous otherwise. According to these standard criteria (Coren, 1993), 46 (10%) were left-handed, 29 (7%) ambidextrous and 370 (83%) right-handed. Consider now the nger counting results (see Table 1). Participants were classied as left-starters when they either wrote the numbers from one to ve next to the left hand picture (in the written response mode) or used a nger of their own left hand to indicate the corresponding numerosity (in actual counting). The corresponding classication rule was applied for right-starters. Importantly, 295 respondents (66%) started to count with their left hand and only 150

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Table 1 Frequencies and percentages of observed nger counting patterns in Study 1 1

LT LT LI LI LP RT RT RI RI RP RP RP Total

2
LI LI LM LM LR RI RI RM RM RR RR RR

3
LM LM LR LR LM RM RM RR RR RM RM RM

4
LR LP LP LP LI RR RP RP RP RT RI RI

5
LP LR LT RP LT RP RR LP RT LI LI RT

N
270 1 9 2 13 121 1 1 7 1 1 18 445

%
60.7 .2 2.0 .4 2.9 27.2 .2 .2 1.6 .2 .2 4.0 100

Note: each letter pair gives both the hand (left or right) and the nger (thumb, index, middle, ring, pinkie) used to indicate the number at the top of its column.

(34%) with their right hand, a signicant difference, Chi2(1) 47.24, p < .001. A further analysis showed that the proportion of left-starters and right-starters was the same among left-handed (N 32 and 14, respectively) and righthanded (N 243 and 127, respectively) respondents, Chi2(1) 0.36, p > .05, with N 20 and 9 ambidextrous leftand right-starters remaining. Ninety-two percent of the left-starters began to count on their thumb and only 3% and 4% on their index or little nger, respectively. For right-starters, these percentages were 80%, <1% and 13%, respectively [with the rest reporting other ngers in response to the number one]. Informal observations further suggest that the retest reliability of the present questionnaire is high: from 13 left-starters and 13 right-starters who had completed the questionnaire, and were then invited for an experiment several weeks later (see Study 2 below), all completed the questionnaire again in the same way as they had before. Furthermore, although reported and actual nger counting habits were not formally compared, participants agreed that the questionnaire captured their nger counting habits appropriately (often after going through the actual counting movements themselves).

equal proportion of left- and right-handers preferred to start counting with the ngers of their left hand. A potential problem for the questionnaire approach to the study of nger counting habits lies in the fact that the written response mode for the majority of participants may have induced a left-to-right bias. Moreover, most of the responses reected memorized (or imagined) rather than actual counting, and this may have invited biases from the associated cognitive processes of memory retrieval or motor imagery (although it is not clear whether and how this would bias the outcome). As the data from actual counting demonstrations versus written responses were not separately coded, these possibilities must be investigated in future studies. Future work should also determine the psychometric properties of this (or an improved) nger counting questionnaire to conrm its informally observed good reliability and face validity. The present results are in conict with Sato and Lalains (2008, this issue) report of a right-hand preference in nger counting (see also Di Luca et al., 2006) and a close link between hand preference and nger counting preference in their French participants. Instructions to either count or show the numbers on the hand might be responsible for both differences, and future cross-cultural studies should use standardized instructions to rule out this possibility, or to establish the extent to which nger counting preferences are culture-specic. While it remains to be investigated how the left-start preference emerged in the Scottish sample regardless of handedness, its existence raises the possibility that the direction of the SNARC effect reects the predominant nger counting habit in the population tested. This hypothesis was tested in the second study.

3.

Study 2: speeded parity judgments

Do nger counting habits, as determined by the questionnaire described above, indeed inuence the direction, or at least the strength, of the association between numbers and space? To answer this question, data sets were combined from four separate unpublished student projects in which the questionnaire had been administered prior to testing the SNARC effect. While details differed slightly across studies (see below), all methods were standard assessments of the SNARC effect with a parity task.

2.4.

Discussion

3.1.

Methods

The rst study documents a preference to start counting with the ngers of the left hand in a sizeable sample of adults from a western culture. This observation is in line with Conants (1896/1960) report and constitutes the rst large-scale data set of its kind. The observed association of small numbers with the left hand and larger numbers with the right hand conrms the manumerical cognition account of the SNARC effect and can explain both the origin and the direction of the prevalent spatial-numerical association in western adults. One possible origin of the left start preference, already suggested by Conant, may be to keep the dominant or more dexterous right hand free for object manipulation or to point to the ngers of the other hand during counting. This hypothesis is, however, not in agreement with the observation that an

Participants were recruited from the same population as in Study 1 over a period of two years in four separate studies. Overall, the four studies included 53 left-starters and 47 right-starters, sufcient to detect a large effect with a conventional alpha level of .05 and power (1b) of .95 in a two-tailed t-test (Faul et al., in press). They were not selected for their age, gender, handedness or native language, although most of them were students at the University of Dundee. Each participant sat on a height-adjustable chair centered in front of a 37 27 cm CRT monitor. A Pentium PIII 500E PC used either Superlab Pro or E-Prime software (depending on the experiment) to present stimuli and record responses on two standard keyboard keys which were centered in front of the monitor and operated with the left and right hands,

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respectively. Either the digits from 1 through 8, or the digits 1, 2, 8 and 9 (depending on the experiment) were shown centered on the screen in black on a white background.1 The task was to classify each digit as odd or even by pressing one of two buttons as soon as the digit appeared on the computer screen. Each trial began with a xation cross for either 500 msec or 1 sec (depending on the experiment), followed by a randomly selected digit that remained on screen until a response was recorded. Each participant worked with both response rules (even digit left hand or even digit right hand) in two separate blocks, the order of which was counterbalanced across participants.

3.2.

Results

Fig. 2 Distribution of regression slopes in the two groups. Bin labels indicate upper decade limits.

Error responses and outliers were removed from analyses. Direction and strength of the SNARC effect were assessed by calculating, for each participant and each digit shown, the average difference RT right minus RT left. This score was then regressed on digit magnitude, yielding for each participant a non-standardized regression weight which captured the direction and strength of the spatial mapping of numbers (cf. Wood et al., submitted for publication). These slope coefcients were tested against zero within each group and against each other between groups. The overall regression weight was 6.86 msec/digit (SD 12.31), t(99) 5.57, p < .001, indicating a reliable SNARC effect. Importantly, left-starters and right-starters differed in terms of the strength of their association between numbers and space. The average regression weight for left-starters was 9.22 msec/digit (SD 8.9, range 29.96 to 17.33), t(52) 7.55, p < .001, indicating a robust SNARC effect. In contrast, the average regression weight for right-starters was only 4.19 msec/digit (SD 14.94, range 31.37 to 44.27), t(46) 1.92, p > .06, indicating the absence of a reliable SNARC effect. As can be seen in Fig. 2, this was due to the larger variability among the right-starters compared to the left-starters, as conrmed by Levenes test, F(12,12) 6.97, p < .01, and also due to the more frequent occurrence of reversed SNARC associations in that group. Even after adjusting the degrees of freedom conservatively for unequal variances, the statistical comparison of the two group means yielded a reliable difference, t(73.06) 2.01, p < .05. This key nding indicates that the spatial mapping of numbers is slightly but signicantly weaker in adults who begin to count on the ngers of their right hand, compared to the majority of adults who begin to count on the ngers of their left hand.

SNARC effect in a group of participants who preferred to start counting with the ngers on their right hand, thus entertaining the opposite spatial-numerical association. This result reects the larger variability of spatial mappings in the group of right-starters compared to left-starters: Several right-starters but few left-starters exhibited reversed associations of numbers with space, as reected in their positive regression coefcients (Fig. 2). But the SNARC effect was not simply reversed in the group of right-starters, indicating that other factors contribute to the direction and strength of the SNARC effect in adults (cf. Fischer, 2006). Nevertheless, there was a reliable difference in the strength of the spatial association for numbers between the two groups, and this result provides support for the hypothesis that nger counting habits, presumably acquired during childhood, contribute to the SNARC effect in adults.

4.

General discussion

3.3.

Discussion

There was a signicant SNARC effect in a group of participants who preferred to start counting with the ngers on their left hand, thus associating small digits with left space and larger digits with right space. In contrast, there was no reliable
1 A reviewer correctly pointed out that the number range 18 is asymmetrically favoring one hand. While this should not bias the outcome of the experiment either way, it would be interesting to determine whether the number range used inuences SNARC or nger-counting effects.

This paper explored the role of nger counting habits in adult numerical cognition. The rst study showed that in a western culture (Scotland) a majority of adults report a preference to begin counting on the ngers of their left hand. This observation is consistent with the hypothesis that the SNARC effect results from directional nger counting habits, at least in this population. The hypothesis predicts that left-starters show a normal SNARC effect whereas it should be diluted for right-starters, due to the inconsistency between the spatial mapping of numbers in nger counting compared with other spatial strategies. This prediction was tested in the second study by comparing the SNARC effects for two groups of normal adults with opposing nger counting preferences. The results showed a typical and reliable SNARC effect for left-starters and no reliable SNARC effect for right-starters, and a signicant difference between groups. These ndings support the manumerical cognition hypothesis, i.e., the idea that nger counting habits inuence numerical cognition in healthy adults. The results t well with other recent observations of close links between ngers and numbers (see Section 1), despite cross-cultural inconsistencies regarding the lateral preferences. Regardless of whether people start to count on their left or right hand (or use one hand to point to the ngers of

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the other hand), it seems clear that nger representations contribute to adult numerical cognition. In follow-up work, larger samples, combined with recording of the hands orientation in space during counting, could be used to compare effects of different within-hand counting patterns on the resulting SNARC effect. An assessment of the strength of any particular preference could help to further clarify how nger counting inuences the strength and direction of this effect. The manumerical cognition hypothesis cannot directly explain the spatial representation of numbers >10 (e.g., Fias and Fischer, 2005), the dependency of the spatial association on the range of numbers tested (Dehaene et al., 1993, Experiment 3; Fias et al., 1996), or the observation that crossing the hands does not reverse the SNARC effect (Dehaene et al., 1993, Experiment 6; but see Wood et al., 2006; and Fischer, 2006 for discussion). Each of these ndings indicates that additional cognitive processes can contribute to the resulting spatial representation of numbers. For example, the cross-over null effect might reect a generalization of the original numberhand association to the space the hand normally occupies. The preference for one or the other hand in nger counting does not imply that the spatial association for numbers is initially categorical. Recent computational work by Gevers et al. (2006) explains why the categorical or continuous mapping of numbers onto space can be task-dependent, at least for speeded tasks. The dominant pattern in the present data was that of two continua, each starting at the thumb (for one and six) and moving towards the mid-sagittal plane as the count increased. Assuming a supine orientation of both hands, this implies a spatial discontinuity between ve and six, and Domahs et al. (2008, this issue) provide support for the psychological reality of such a discontinuity from increased error rates of childrens mental arithmetic. Manumerical cognition may have important implications for both neuropsychology and experimental psychology. With regard to neuropsychology, it may be possible to help rehabilitate basic number skills in patients through simple nger counting exercises. For example, small number concepts (or at least their spatial component) may become more accessible by stimulating or moving the ngers used for enumerating them, in analogy with similar hand activation strategies for the re-instantiation of neglected space in neurological patients (e.g., Robertson et al., 2002). In experimental psychology, the screening of participants for their nger counting habits will yield more efcient experimental designs in future studies of the link between hands and number representations.

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