A common metric magnitude system for the perception and production of numerosity, length, and duration

Virginie Crollen, Stéphane Grade, Mauro Pesenti, Valérie Dormal

Numerosity, length, and duration processing may share a common functional mechanism situated within the parietal cortex. A strong parallelism between the processing of these three magnitudes has been revealed by similar behavioral signatures (e.g., Weber-Fechner's law, the distance effect) and reciprocal interference effects. Here, we extend the behavioral evidence for a common magnitude processing mechanism by exploring whether the under- and overestimation patterns observed during numerical perception and production tasks are also present in length and duration perception and production. In a first experiment, participants had to perform two estimation tasks (i.e., perception and production) on three magnitudes (i.e., numerosities, lengths, and durations). The results demonstrate similar patterns for the three magnitudes: underestimation was observed in all perception tasks, whereas overestimation was found in all production tasks. A second experiment ensured that this pattern of under- and over-estimation was not solely generated by the mere process of perceiving or producing something. Participants were required to estimate the alphabetical position of a letter (i.e., perception task) or to produce the letter corresponding to a given position (i.e., production task). No under- or overestimation were observed in this experiment, which suggests that the process of perceiving or producing something alone cannot explain the systematic pattern of estimation observed on magnitudes. Together, these findings strengthen the idea that magnitude estimations share a common metric system, requiring similar mechanisms and/or representations.