

Publications
The material on this page is posted to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. PDFs of articles are not provided to ensure that copyright is not violated. If you have trouble accessing any of the listed papers, please feel free to email Dr. Lourenco directly for help obtaining a copy.
The impacts of anxiety and motivation on spatial performance: Implications for gender differences in mental rotation and navigation
Lourenco, S. F., & Liu, Y. (2023, in press). The impacts of anxiety and motivation on spatial performance: Implications for gender differences in mental rotation and navigation. Current Directions in Psychological Science.
ABSTRACT: Despite extensive research on gender differences in spatial cognition, the potential roles of affective and situational factors in accounting for these differences remain relatively understudied. Here, we discuss the impacts of spatial anxiety and motivation in mental rotation and navigation tasks, particularly their roles in explaining the gender performance gaps. We highlight the distinction between approach and avoidance motivation, as well as interactions between anxiety and motivation. Attention, working memory, and response strategy are discussed as mechanisms by which anxiety and motivation may affect performance on spatial tasks. Implications for a broader approach that also considers other psychological variables, such as confidence, are discussed.
A theory of perceptual number encoding
Lourenco, S. F. & Aulet, L. S. (in press). A theory of perceptual number encoding. Psychological Review.
ABSTRACT: There has long been interest in how the mind represents numerical magnitude, particularly in the absence of symbols. For humans and nonhuman animals, number represents a core dimension of perceptual experience by which objects in the physical world are delineated. The physical world is also well characterized by other dimensions, many of which covary with number. Yet the general consensus is that number is perceived independently of other magnitudes that co-occur with it. Here we present evidence against the independence of number perception. In particular, we use evidence from neuroimaging, computational modeling, visual illusions, and psychophysics to introduce a novel theory of visual number encoding, wherein non-numerical magnitude information such as cumulative surface area is encoded along with number and sustained throughout visual perception. Moreover, we propose that the experience of number per se reflects the read-out of a multidimensional (ie, integral) representation vis-à-vis selective attention, not the independent encoding of number.
Aulet, L. S., & Lourenco, S. F. (2023). No intrinsic number bias: evaluating the role of perceptual discriminability in magnitude categorization. Developmental Science, 26 (2), e13305.
ABSTRACT: Accumulating evidence suggests that there is a spontaneous preference for numerical, compared to non-numerical (e.g., cumulative surface area), information. However, given a paucity of research on the perception of non-numerical magnitudes, it is unclear whether this preference reflects a specific bias towards number, or a general bias towards the more perceptually discriminable dimension (i.e., number). Here, we found that when the number and area of visual dot displays were matched in mathematical ratio, number was more perceptually discriminable than area in both adults and children. Moreover, both adults and children preferentially categorized these ratiomatched stimuli based on number, consistent with previous work. However, when number and area were matched in perceptual discriminability, a different pattern of results emerged. In particular, children preferentially categorized stimuli based on area, suggesting that children’s previously observed number bias may be due to a mismatch in the perceptual discriminability of number and area, not an intrinsic salience of number. Interestingly, adults continued to categorize the displays on the basis of number. Altogether, these findings suggest a dominant role for area during childhood, refuting the claim that number is inherently and uniquely salient. Yet they also reveal an increased salience of number that emerges over development. Potential explanations for this developmental shift are discussed.
Lab Publications
2023
Lourenco, S. F., & Aulet, L. S. (2023). A theory of perceptual number encoding. Psychological Review.
Aulet, L. S., & Lourenco, S. F. (2023). No intrinsic number bias: evaluating the role of perceptual discriminability in magnitude categorization. Developmental Science.
2022
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2012
Vasilyeva, M., & Lourenco, S. F. (2012). Development of spatial cognition. WIREs Cognitive Science.
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2008
Lourenco, S. F., & Levine, S. C. (2008). Early numerical representations and the natural numbers: Is there really a complete disconnect? Behavioral and Behavioral Sciences, 31, 660. [commentary]
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