Number-space associations in preschool: What is their prevalence and how do they relate to pre-mathematical and spatial abilities?

The mental association between numbers and space, as evidenced by the SNARC effect, has been intensively studied over the last 30 years. Nonetheless, its prevalence and functional role in mathematical and spatial abilities remains unclear, especially in children. Therefore, we aimed to determine (1) the prevalence of preschool children (n=136, mean age=6.3 years) with consistent SNARC effects and (2) the relationship of the SNARC effect with pre-mathematical and spatial abilities. Children completed a magnitude judgment task to index their SNARC effects as well as 7 numerical and 3 spatial tasks, reduced into two respective factors using principle component analyses. Based on the methodology by Cipora et al., (2019), the consistency of the SNARC effect at the individual level was measured using bootstrapping. The results revealed that 37% and 19% of the children revealed consistent number-space associations in a left-to-right and right-to-left fashion, respectively. The remaining 44% did not show consistent spatial-numerical mappings. One-way ANOVAs revealed no significant effects of SNARC consistency (left-to-right consistent, right-to-left consistent, inconsistent) on either the numerical or spatial factor. Our results thus suggest that although spatially oriented symbolic numerical representations emerge at an early developmental stage, children do not (yet) rely on these associations when performing numerical and spatial tasks.