Notational Modulation of the SNARC and the MARC (Linguistic Markedness of Response Codes) Effect

Abstract

Number magnitude and number parity representation are fundamental number representations. However, the representation of parity is much less understood than that of magnitude: Therefore, we investigated it by examining the (new) Linguistic Markedness of Response Codes (MARC) effect: Responses are facilitated if stimuli and response codes both have the same (congruent) linguistic markedness (even–right, odd–left) while incongruent conditions (even–left, odd–right) lead to interference. We examined systematically the MARC (for parity) and the Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC; for magnitude) effect for different number notations (positive Arabic, negative Arabic, number words) and with different methods of data analysis. In a parity judgement task, the SNARCeffect indicating a magnitude representation was replicated for all notations except for negative numerals. The MARCeffect was found for number words in all analyses, but less consistently for the other notations. In contrast, a correlational analysis of the reaction time (RT) data, as suggested by Sternberg (1969) using a nonmetric multi–dimensional scaling (MDS) procedure, produced a clear association of parity and response code for all notations (MARCeffect), but little evidence of the SNARCeffect. We discuss the extent to which these notation–specific MARC and SNARC effects constrain current models of number processing and elaborate on the possible functional locus of the MARC effect.