Task Moderates the Relationship Between the SNARC-Like Effect and OPE in the Processing of Ordinal Sequences When LTM and WM Sequences Overlap

The current study activated a temporary letter sequence by successively presenting five letters and exploring how each of them were encoded once the long-term memory (LTM) sequence was relevant to the alphabet and the working memory (WM) sequence was relevant to temporary learning with serial overlapping in a letter long-term sequence classification task (Experiment 1), letter WM sequence classification task (Experiment 2), and letter color classification task (Experiment 3). The results showed that (a) the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect was present both in the LTM sequence and WM sequence within the letter LTM sequence classification task, (b) the SNARC effect was only present in the WM sequence within the letter WM sequence classification task, (c) the SNARC effect was only present in the WM sequence in the LTM sequence-response consistent condition in the letter color classification task, and (d) the SNARC effect on relevant WM and relevant LTM interacted in the letter WM sequence classification task and letter color classification task, but did not interact in the letter LTM sequence classification task. These results imply that (a) each specific sequence was explored to spatially encode letters in the LTM sequence and temporarily within the WM sequence when overlapping context was moderated by the cognitive task and (b) task orientation also determines whether individuals process LTM sequences and WM sequences in a parallel or serial manner.