Biomedical subjects

Elie Ratinckx

Publications and source records attributed to Elie Ratinckx.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Effects of interhemispheric communication on two-digit arabic number processing.

We investigated interhemispheric communication and hemispheric style differences (analytic vs. holistic) in two-digit Arabic number comparison by employing the divided visual field paradigm. Interhemispheric communication modulated two-digit number comparison in a very specific way. While no advantage of interhemispheric communication was found with unit-decade compatible trials (e.g., 52 and 67, the decade comparison and unit comparison of the two numbers lead to the same response; see Nuerk et al., 2001), a significant advantage of interhemispheric interactions emerged in the attentionally more demanding incompatible trials (e.g., 47 and 62, decade and unit comparisons do not lead to the same response, because 4 < 6 but 7 > 2), thereby enhancing the efficiency of selective attention (c.f., Banich, 1998). Additionally, some results indicated a more analytical processing style in the left hemisphere and a relatively more holistic processing style in the right hemisphere.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Further evidence that the SNARC effect is processed along a dual-route architecture: Evidence from the lateralized readiness potential.

In a binary response setting, it has been frequently observed that small numbers are reacted to faster with the left hand and large numbers with the right hand (i. e., the SNARC-effect) which reflects the spatial left-right orientation of the mental number line (Dehaene, Bossini, & Giraux, 1993). In line with the work of Keus and Schwarz (in press), we investigated the locus of the conflict in the SNARC effect in a parity judgment task with the Arabic numerals 1, 2, 8, or 9. Differences between compatible (left-hand response to 1 or 2 and right-hand response to 8 and 9) and incompatible SNARC conditions (left-hand response to 8 or 9 and right-hand response to 1 or 2) were observed in the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) but not in the peak latency of the P300. In accordance with Keus and colleagues (Keus, Jenks, & Schwarz, 2005), we argue that the locus of the conflict is situated at intermediate response-related stages. However, instead of adopting a single-route processing architecture, a dual route account is proposed as the underlying processing architecture explaining the SNARC effect.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Timed picture naming norms for 590 pictures in Dutch.

The present study presents timed norms for 590 pictures in Belgian Dutch. We determined name agreement and response latencies. Furthermore, we assessed which factors influenced the naming latencies of the pictures. It appeared that age-of-acquisition, the H-statistic (an index of name agreement), and the number of syllables of the dominant response were significant predictors of the naming latencies. These results are discussed in comparison with previous findings.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Naming two-digit arabic numerals: evidence from masked priming studies.

The authors investigated how 2-digit Arabic numerals are named by looking at the effects of masked primes on the naming latencies. Target numerals were named faster when prime and target shared a digit at the same position (e.g., the target 28 primed by 18 and 21). In contrast, naming latencies were slower when prime and target shared 1 or 2 digits at non-corresponding places (e.g., the target 28 primed by 82, 86, or 72). Subsequent experiments showed that these priming effects were situated at the level of the verbal production of the Arabic numerals. The data point to a non-semantically mediated route from visual input to verbal output in the naming of 2-digit Arabic numerals.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Hemispheric differences between left and right number representations: effects of conscious and unconscious priming.

The contribution of each hemisphere to the generation of number representations was investigated by two lateralized priming experiments in which participants had to compare Arabic digits to a fixed standard of four. In Experiment 1, unmasked primes (Arabic digits or word numerals) were used. In Experiment 2, masked primes were presented consciously or subconsciously. In both experiments similar priming effects were found in the left (LH) and the right hemisphere (RH) when the prime was presented consciously. However, asymmetries emerged when the primes were presented subconsciously: while the priming effects of digits and word numbers were equally large in the right visual half field (RVF-LH), the influence of the word prime on the semantic and the response stage of the left visual half field (LVF-RH) was absent, indicating that a word prime was no longer processed when it was presented subconsciously in LVF-RH. We believe that the origin of the latter effect can be attributed to a failure to transfer word number primes from the RH to the LH when attentional resources are restricted.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Interhemispheric stroop-like interference in number comparison: evidence for strong interhemispheric integration of semantic number information.

Three experiments investigated interhemispheric interactions in number comparison using the interhemispheric Stroop-like paradigm (E. Ratinckx, M. Brysbaert, & B. Reynvoet, 2001). In all experiments, a target was presented in I visual field simultaneously with a distractor in the other visual field. In Experiment 1, both target and distractor were of the same modality (Arabic digits), whereas in Experiment 2, target and distractor were of different modalities (Arabic digits and word numerals). In Experiment 3, the interhemispheric Stroop-like task of Experiment 1 was combined with intrahemispheric conditions to evaluate the strength of the interhemispheric interactions. Overall, the results point to strong interhemispheric integration during semantic access and response preparation with very weak lateralization of the semantic number system.

Adolescent↗