DIFERENTES ASPECTOS DEL PROCESAMIENTO NUMÉRICO ESTUDIADOS CON UNA METODOLOGÍA PRIMING

Este trabajo estudia con una metodologia priming diferentes aspectos del procesamiento numerico, para lo cual se utilizo una tarea de categorizacion semantica con estimulos target que se debian comparar, indicar si era mayor o menor, a el numero de referencia 5. Participaron 41 voluntarios sanos diestros de ambos sexos de edades entre 25-35 anos. Los sujetos realizaron la tarea respondiendo al numero mayor y menor con la mano izquierda y derecha en bloques separados aleatorizados. El priming consistio en la presentacion de numeros subliminales precediendo a los target. Los resultados confirmaron los efectos conocidos de notacion, distancia numerica, lado de respuesta y repeticion pero no el “response priming”. Se observaron interacciones significativas entre notacion, distancia numerica y repeticion, pero no entre notacion y lado de respuesta. Estos resultados sugieren que la arquitectura funcional del procesamiento numerico es una estructura asociativa compleja que interconecta diferentes tipos de representaciones numericas las cuales son especificas para cada tipo de notacion. Palabras Clave priming procesamiento numerico Abstract DIFFERENTIAL ASPECTS OF NUMERICAL PROCESSING STUDIED WITH PRIMING METHODOLOGY Differential aspects of numerical processing were studied with priming methodology for which a semantic categorization task was used. Subjects had to compare a target stimulus with a reference number and decide whether the target was smaller o greater than the reference number. Unbeknown to them, each target stimulus was preceded by a masked subliminal prime. Forty-one right-handed healthy voluntary students of both sexes between the ages of 25 and 35 participated of the experiment. They were asked to respond to large and small numbers with the right and left hand in randomized separate experimental blocks. Significant principal effects of notation, distance, side of response and repetition priming was observed but not of “response priming”. Interactions between notation, distance and repetition reached significant level. Notation by side of response interaction was never observed. These results suggest that the functional architecture of number processing is a complex associative structure that interconnects different types of number representations which are specific to each notation. Key words priming number processing