Quantity processing of Chinese numeral classifiers: Distance and congruity effects

Abstract

A numeral classifier is required between a numeral and a noun in Chinese, which comes in two varieties, sortal classifier (C) and mensural classifier (M). A recent linguistic theory suggests that C/Ms carry quantity information, where C and M converge as the multiplicand, with numeral as the multiplier, but C and M diverge in the mathematical values they denote. However, previous empirical studies were sparse and presented inconsistent results. This study aimed to investigate the mathematical function of C/Ms using the number-size task in which participants had to choose from two C/M phrases the one that represents a larger quantity or in a larger font size. If C/M phrases engage quantity processing like numbers, distance and congruity effects should emerge. As expected, participants performed more accurately and faster at comparing two distant stimuli than two proximate ones, indicating that the mathematical values of C/M were represented like a mental number line. Moreover, participants` performance was partially influenced by the irrelevant information from the other dimension, suggesting that the mathematical values of C/Ms and the physical font size interfere with each other. These results corroborated that C/Ms play a role in magnitude cognition.