Reappraising the SNARC effect in a polarity correspondence perspective

We conducted two experiments two shed light on some neglected aspects of the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect. Eighty participants separately performed the explicit (magnitude comparison) and the implicit (parity judgment) SNARC tasks. Both group of participants underwent two different sessions, which were separated by at least two weeks. The data were analyzed using RStudio. The results highlight an unexpected asymmetry in the magnitude of the SNARC effect for small (1-4) and large (6-9) numbers. In general, this asymmetric pattern of results suggests that the mental number line (MNL) is insufficient to explain the SNARC effect. The possible interpretation is the conceptual representation of numbers and response sides as positive and negative polarity, with an automatic association between corresponding polarities. The data also indicate that the polarity-based association might be stronger for the positive than for the negative polarity.