How do you order the numbers from 1 to 10 in a sequence? Do you mean horizontally? Do you think it's vertically? Right to left? Do you mean top to bottom? Is it possible you would place them randomly?
In Western countries, the correct ordering of numbers is from left to right, instead of right to left.
A mental number line is an important way to represent number and quantity in space.
Humans prefer to place large numbers to the right and small numbers to the left.
People are usually quicker and more accurate at comparing numbers when larger ones are to the right and smaller ones are to the left, and people with brain damage show similar disruptions in number processing.
There hasn't been a lot of research on whether the horizontal dimensions are the most important one in numbers. Humans process numbers quicker when they are displayed vertically, with smaller numbers at the bottom and larger numbers at the top.
Language and culture influence our associations between number and space.
Three-day-old chick tests show they prefer smaller numbers with a leftwards bias and larger numbers with a rightwards one. A left-to-right or right-to- left mental number line can be seen in pigeons and blue jays.
The findings suggest that space and numbers may be connected to the brain of humans and other animals.
Many studies have looked at left-to-right and right-to- left horizontal mental number lines, but few have looked at whether our dominant mental number line is horizontal at all.
In order to find out how quickly people can process numbers in different arrangements, we used an experiment where people were shown pairs of numbers from 1 to 9 on a monitor and used a joystick to find the bigger number.
The correct answer would be 8 if the 6 and 8 were displayed. The participant would indicate this by moving the joystick quickly.
Fast-refresh 120hertz monitors and zero-lag arcade joysticks were used to measure response times.
The response time was affected by the vertical arrangement of the numbers.
Participants only used the vertical representation when they used the horizontal representation.
People responded more quickly when the larger number was above the smaller one.
Our mental number line goes from the bottom to the top.
Our safety is affected by the number of numbers in our lives. All of us need to know what button to press on an elevator, pharmacists need to correctly measure doses of medicine, engineers need to determine stresses on buildings and structures, and pilots need to know their speed and altitude.
Important implications for how we make fast and accurate decisions can be found in how we learn to use numbers.
Some time-critical decision-making environments, such as airplane cockpits and stock market floors, display numbers vertically.
Our findings could have implications for designers who want to help users understand and use numerical information.
Modern devices allow people to use technology more efficiently and safely.
Children should be taught to use vertical bottom-to-top mental number lines as well as the familiar left-to-right ones in education.
Our brains are wired to be more efficient at using numbers at the bottom of the pyramid.
Adrian Dyer, Associate Professor, and Jair Garcia, researcher and analyst, are both at Monash University.
Under a Creative Commons license, this article is re-posted. The original article is worth a read.
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