The missing link: Global-local processing relates to number-magnitude processing in women.

Number processing and visual hierarchical processing (global-local processing) have much in common. However, the shared aspects of number processing and global-local processing have not been investigated so far. Most visual stimuli are hierarchical with global structures made up of local parts. Processing of global and local aspects occurs in parallel and the global advantage effect indicates faster reactions to global than local aspects. Likewise, multidigit numbers can be represented holistically (whole number magnitudes) or in a decomposed fashion (single digit magnitudes). During comparison of 2-digit numbers, the unit-decade compatibility effect indicates slower responses when the larger number contains the smaller unit digit and has been suggested as a measure of how strongly participants rely on decomposed number representations. However, this interpretation of the compatibility effect is still controversial and a link between global-local processing and the individual tendency to rely on decomposed representations of multidigit numbers remains to be established. To that end we assessed whether the compatibility effect during number comparison was related to various measures of global advantage. To answer this question we drew upon existing data from participants who had completed both, the number comparison task and 2 global-local tasks. Results show that the compatibility effect is indeed negatively related to several measures of global advantage in women, with no evidence for such a relationship in men. These results demonstrate that global-local processing transcends into the numerical domain but also suggest that the compatibility effect reflects different mechanisms in men and women. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).