A multilab registered replication of the attentional SNARC effect.

Abstract

The attentional Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (att-SNARC) effect (Fischer et al., 2003; Nature Neuroscience)—the finding that participants are quicker to detect left-side targets when the targets are preceded by small numbers and quicker to detect right-side targets when they are preceded by large numbers—has been used as evidence for embodied number representations and to allow for strong claims about the link between number and space (e.g., a mental number line). We 41 attempted to replicate Study 2 of Fischer et al. (2003) by collecting data from 1105 participants across seventeen labs. Across all 1105 participants and four ISI conditions, the proportion of times the direction of the observed effect was consistent with the original effect was 0.50. Further, the effects we observed both within and across labs were minuscule and incompatible with those observed in Fischer et al. (2003). Given this, we conclude that we have failed to replicate the effect reported by Fischer et al. (2003). In addition, our analysis of several participant-level moderators (finger counting preferences, reading/writing direction experience, handedness, and mathematics fluency and mathematics anxiety) revealed no substantial moderating effects. Our results demonstrate that the att-SNARC effect cannot be used as evidence to support the strong claims about the link between number and space discussed above.