According to the late stage account,

the different quantities are processed in parallel until

later stages, where response competition occurs and
the overt response is produced.

In
contrast, according to the early stage account, the in-
terference between the two dimensions is due to con-
vergence of the quantities from different dimensions
onto an amodal single representation whose outputs
are further processed at later stages (e.g., response ac-
tivation)

It is important to stress the difference between the

general behavior rule and the shared mechanism
hypotheses. The first hypothesis suggests that the two
different comparisons occur independently until motor
initiation, where the competition between the re-
sponses occurs. In contrast, the shared mechanism hy-
pothesis suggests that processing involves a common
brain area that integrates different types of informa-
tion before the response stage (i.e., shared brain mech-
anism).

First, it is well grounded that numbers

are processed serially (Dehaene, 1996). The additive
factor method (Sternberg, 1969) proposed that under
serial processing, an interaction between two factors
occurs if the processing of both factors is carried out
by a common stage of processing.

Second, recent studies by Fias, Lammertyn, Reynvoet,

Dupont, and Orban (2003) and Cohen Kadosh et al.,
(2005b), have shown that a joint area in the left intra-
parietal sulcus (LIPS) is responsive when a compari-
son of physical size, angles, luminance and numerical
value (i.e., magnitude) is carried out.

Third, powerful
evidence is also coming from studies that showed that
the irrelevant and relevant dimensions interfere with
one another if processing of these two dimensions in-
volves a shared brain structure

Neuroimaging findings have suggested the existence

of a shared brain mechanism that is involved in pro-
cessing semantic as well as physical magnitude
Eighteen students (
M
= 23.87 years old,
SD
= 2.47

white
computer screen

The center-to-center distance be-

tween the two digits was 10 cm and the participants
sat 55 cm from the screen.

Daljine: 1 3 i 5

Error rates were generally low (2.6 % for the luminance

block, and 3.2 % for the numerical block). Due to lack
of variance in several conditions, a correlation analysis
was conducted between RTs and error rates. The results
did not show any RT-accuracy trade-off,
r
(27) = 0.88,
p
.001 for luminance block, and
r
(27) = 0.87,
p
.001 for numerical block

The congruity
effect was found regardless of the type of comparison.
Namely, participants were faster when the numerical
and luminance dimensions were congruent

In
the numerical comparison the congruity effect had both
interference and facilitatory components, whereas in
the luminance comparison the congruity effect was in-
terference (and not facilitatory) based

There was a
distance effect for both numerical and luminance com-
parisons, that is, responding was faster for large dis-
tances than small ones
Numerical and luminance
distances modulated the congruity effects in numerical
as well as in luminance comparisons. Increase of irrele-
vant distance increased the effect whereas increase of
relevant distance decreased the effec

The appearance of
mutual interference between physical and semantic in-
formation implies that the brain is either equipped with
a general comparison mechanism or that there is a gene-
al rule of operation that is involved in the procedure of
quite different mechanisms.

These findings indicate that the

processing of different magnitudes is accomplished by
the same brain area, on an amodal representation

hree different comparisons where

employed: numerical comparison, size comparison,
and luminance comparison. All three comparisons re-
vealed widely overlapping activated cortical regions

t has been pointed out that the size congruity effect

under the numerical comparison might be due to the
capture of attention by the more salient stimulus

Hence, although the possible contribution of attentional

capture to the size congruity effect deserves additional
study, it is less parsimonious than the shared brain
mechanism explanation
+ zato bi 6 uhvatilo vie nego 4

he size congru-
ity effect of the physical comparison was interference-
based whereas the size congruity effect of the numeri-
cal comparisons was usually composed of both facilita-
tory and interference components.

Future studies with

primates using single cell recording are essential for
validating the suggested relationship between numeri-
cal values and other magnitude dimensions, and the
possible existence of such magneurons