A large-scale survey on finger counting routines, their temporal stability and flexibility in educated adults
A strong link between bodily activity and number processing has been established in recent years. Although numerous observations indicate that adults use finger counting (FC) in various contexts of everyday life for different purposes, existing knowledge of FC routines and their use is still limited...
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| Format: | Article |
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PeerJ Inc.
2018-10-01
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| Online Access: | https://peerj.com/articles/5878.pdf |
| _version_ | 1797418319349809152 |
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| author | Mateusz Hohol Kinga Wołoszyn Hans-Christoph Nuerk Krzysztof Cipora |
| author_facet | Mateusz Hohol Kinga Wołoszyn Hans-Christoph Nuerk Krzysztof Cipora |
| author_sort | Mateusz Hohol |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | A strong link between bodily activity and number processing has been established in recent years. Although numerous observations indicate that adults use finger counting (FC) in various contexts of everyday life for different purposes, existing knowledge of FC routines and their use is still limited. In particular, it remains unknown how stable the (default) FC habits are over time and how flexible they can be. To investigate these questions, 380 Polish participants completed a questionnaire on their FC routines, the stability of these routines, and the context of FC usage, preceded by the request to count on their fingers from 1 to 10. Next, the test–retest stability of FC habits was examined in 84 participants 2 months following the first session. To the best of our knowledge, such a study design has been adopted for the first time. The results indicate that default FC routines of the majority of participants (75%) are relatively stable over time. At the same time, FC routines can flexibly adapt according to the situation (e.g., when holding an object). As regards prevalence, almost all participants, in line with previous findings on Western individuals, declared starting from the closed palm and extending consecutive fingers. Furthermore, we observed relations between FC preferences and handedness (more left-handers start from the left hand) and that actual finger use is still widespread in healthy adults for a variety of activities (the most prevalent uses of FC are listing elements, presenting arguments and plans, and calendar calculations). In sum, the results show the practical relevance of FC in adulthood, the relative stability of preferences over time along with flexible adaptation to a current situation, as well as an association of FC routines with handedness. Taken together our results suggest that FC is the phenomenon, which is moderated or mediated by multiple embodied factors. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T06:31:02Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6947bc6b2149458e8b875949dcc6ced6 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2167-8359 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T06:31:02Z |
| publishDate | 2018-10-01 |
| publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PeerJ |
| spelling | doaj.art-6947bc6b2149458e8b875949dcc6ced62023-12-03T11:04:46ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ2167-83592018-10-016e587810.7717/peerj.5878A large-scale survey on finger counting routines, their temporal stability and flexibility in educated adultsMateusz Hohol0Kinga Wołoszyn1Hans-Christoph Nuerk2Krzysztof Cipora3Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, PolandPsychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, PolandDepartment of Psychology, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, GermanyDepartment of Psychology, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, GermanyA strong link between bodily activity and number processing has been established in recent years. Although numerous observations indicate that adults use finger counting (FC) in various contexts of everyday life for different purposes, existing knowledge of FC routines and their use is still limited. In particular, it remains unknown how stable the (default) FC habits are over time and how flexible they can be. To investigate these questions, 380 Polish participants completed a questionnaire on their FC routines, the stability of these routines, and the context of FC usage, preceded by the request to count on their fingers from 1 to 10. Next, the test–retest stability of FC habits was examined in 84 participants 2 months following the first session. To the best of our knowledge, such a study design has been adopted for the first time. The results indicate that default FC routines of the majority of participants (75%) are relatively stable over time. At the same time, FC routines can flexibly adapt according to the situation (e.g., when holding an object). As regards prevalence, almost all participants, in line with previous findings on Western individuals, declared starting from the closed palm and extending consecutive fingers. Furthermore, we observed relations between FC preferences and handedness (more left-handers start from the left hand) and that actual finger use is still widespread in healthy adults for a variety of activities (the most prevalent uses of FC are listing elements, presenting arguments and plans, and calendar calculations). In sum, the results show the practical relevance of FC in adulthood, the relative stability of preferences over time along with flexible adaptation to a current situation, as well as an association of FC routines with handedness. Taken together our results suggest that FC is the phenomenon, which is moderated or mediated by multiple embodied factors.https://peerj.com/articles/5878.pdfNumber processingNumerical cognitionFinger countingEmbodied cognitionSituated cognitionHandedness |
| spellingShingle | Mateusz Hohol Kinga Wołoszyn Hans-Christoph Nuerk Krzysztof Cipora A large-scale survey on finger counting routines, their temporal stability and flexibility in educated adults PeerJ Number processing Numerical cognition Finger counting Embodied cognition Situated cognition Handedness |
| title | A large-scale survey on finger counting routines, their temporal stability and flexibility in educated adults |
| title_full | A large-scale survey on finger counting routines, their temporal stability and flexibility in educated adults |
| title_fullStr | A large-scale survey on finger counting routines, their temporal stability and flexibility in educated adults |
| title_full_unstemmed | A large-scale survey on finger counting routines, their temporal stability and flexibility in educated adults |
| title_short | A large-scale survey on finger counting routines, their temporal stability and flexibility in educated adults |
| title_sort | large scale survey on finger counting routines their temporal stability and flexibility in educated adults |
| topic | Number processing Numerical cognition Finger counting Embodied cognition Situated cognition Handedness |
| url | https://peerj.com/articles/5878.pdf |
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