Cross-Format Integration of Auditory Number Words and Visual-Arabic Digits: An ERP Study

Sabrina Finke; Ferenc Kemény; Francina J Clayton; Chiara Banfi; Anna F Steiner; Corinna M Perchtold-Stefan; Ilona Papousek; Silke M Göbel; Karin Landerl

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.765709

Cross-Format Integration of Auditory Number Words and Visual-Arabic Digits: An ERP Study

Front Psychol. 2021 Nov 23:12:765709. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.765709. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Sabrina Finke¹, Ferenc Kemény^{1

2}, Francina J Clayton³, Chiara Banfi^{1

4}, Anna F Steiner^{1

5}, Corinna M Perchtold-Stefan¹, Ilona Papousek¹, Silke M Göbel^{3

6}, Karin Landerl^{1

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
² Institute of Education and Psychology at Szombathely, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
³ Department of Psychology, University of York, York, United Kingdom.
⁴ Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
⁵ FH JOANNEUM, University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria.
⁶ Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
⁷ BioTechMed-Graz, Graz, Austria.
⁸ Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Abstract

Converting visual-Arabic digits to auditory number words and vice versa is seemingly effortless for adults. However, it is still unclear whether this process takes place automatically and whether accessing the underlying magnitude representation is necessary during this process. In two event-related potential (ERP) experiments, adults were presented with identical (e.g., "one" and 1) or non-identical (e.g., "one" and 9) number pairs, either unimodally (two visual-Arabic digits) or cross-format (an auditory number word and a visual-Arabic digit). In Experiment 1 (N=17), active task demands required numerical judgments, whereas this was not the case in Experiment 2 (N=19). We found pronounced early ERP markers of numerical identity unimodally in both experiments. In the cross-format conditions, however, we only observed late neural correlates of identity and only if the task required semantic number processing (Experiment 1). These findings suggest that unimodal pairs of digits are automatically integrated, whereas cross-format integration of numerical information occurs more slowly and involves semantic access.

Keywords: ERP; N1; N400; cross-format integration; numerical cognition; symbolic numbers.