Mental Number Lines. SNARC Effect. Philosophical Aspects

Abstract

The aim of the article is to propose a formal model of a representational system underlying the core numerical knowledge which is usually manifested in psychological experiments as the SNARC effect, size and distance effects, and the effect of numerical scale. Starting with the assumption that all the effects can be explained by a metaphor of a mental number line, we based our model on a hierarchical structure composed of three numerical axes characterized by different levels of representational efficiency: (i) a summation-accumulator axis, (ii) a point-place axis, and (iii) an exact point-based axis. The model predicts that a mature exact number line, in a form as it is observed in most of experiments with adults, arises as an effect of certain transformation processes occurring within first two primary, pre-existing axes. The paradigm underlying the theoretic construction may be interpreted philosophically as a neo-Kantian approach to modelling mind's representational structures.