The importance of being relevant: modulation of magnitude representations

Abstract

The current study aims to answer two main questions. First, is there a difference between the representations of the numerical and the physical properties of visually presented numbers? Second, can the relevancy of the dimension change its representation? In a numerical Stroop task, participants were asked to indicate either the physically or the numerically larger value of two digits. The ratio between the physical sizes and the numerical values changed orthogonally from 0.1 (the largest difference) to 0.8. Reaction times (RT) were plotted as a function of both physical and numerical ratios. Trend analysis revealed that while the numerical dimension followed Weber's law regardless of task demands, the physical ratio deviated from linearity. Our results suggest that discrete and continuous magnitudes are represented by different yet interactive systems rather than by a shared representation.