From: PSYCHOBOX‚ A BOX PSVHOLOGICAL GAMES. Edited by: Mel GOODING. Shambala Publication . 2004
WHICH IS THE GREATER NUMBER?
This test is best administered by masking the card and successively uncovering from the top each row of three panels. Each panel contains two numerals. Moving from top left to bottom right as fast as you can‚ you must answer the question 'Does the numeral on the right represent the larger or smaller quantity?' saying aloud 'larger' or 'smaller'.
You will probably have made errors or hesitated at the last two panels. The two numerals in each of the previous panels are the same physical size‚ so we don't have to make any effort to ignore their relative sizes. In the last two panels the numerals are of different dimensions and the physically larger represents the smaller quantity.
In the Colour Naming and the Number Counting cards the interference comes from symbolic features (the printed colour words and the numerals) but in this case the interference comes from the physical non-symbolic feature of size. In those other cases the symbolic information is easier and faster to read and say than the relevant feature (colour or quantity) is to name. In this case we are asked about relative quantity‚ which takes time to be represented and mentally computed‚ whilst the relative dimensions of the Arabic numerals is immediately apprehended. When we encounter non-congruence (where the numerals for the smaller numbers are printed larger than those for the larger numbers) the faster response (to the size of the numerals) interferes with the prescribed task (the naming of quantities)