691548

research-article2017
PSSXXX10.1177/0956797617691548Cooperrider et al.Ordered Line

Research Article

Psychological Science

Where Does the Ordered Line Come 2017, Vol. 28(5) 599­–608
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0956797617691548
https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617691548

Papua New Guinea www.psychologicalscience.org/PS

Kensy Cooperrider1, Tyler Marghetis2, and Rafael Núñez3

1
Department of Psychology, University of Chicago; 2Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences,
Indiana University–Bloomington; and 3Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego

Abstract
Number lines, calendars, and measuring sticks all represent order along some dimension (e.g., magnitude) as position
on a line. In high-literacy, industrialized societies, this principle of spatial organization—linear order—is a fixture of
visual culture and everyday cognition. But what are the principle’s origins, and how did it become such a fixture?
Three studies investigated intuitions about linear order in the Yupno, members of a culture of Papua New Guinea
that lacks conventional representations involving ordered lines, and in U.S. undergraduates. Presented with cards
representing differing sizes and numerosities, both groups arranged them using linear order or sometimes spatial
grouping, a competing principle. But whereas the U.S. participants produced ordered lines in all tasks, strongly
favoring a left-to-right format, the Yupno produced them less consistently, and with variable orientations. Conventional
linear representations are thus not necessary to spark the intuition of linear order—which may have other experiential
sources—but they nonetheless regiment when and how the principle is used.

Keywords
spatial concepts, visual culture, order, number, cognitive diversity, open materials

Received 7/26/16; Revision accepted 1/11/17

Two millennia ago, Aristotle proposed a scheme for
understanding nature: a ladder on which different beings
were ordered, with the simplest on the bottom rung and
the most sophisticated on top (Archibald, 2014). This
ancient scheme embodies the principle of linear order,
according to which the order of elements with respect to
some dimension—such as simplicity, magnitude, or
sequence—is represented by their positions in a linear
arrangement. Today, the principle of linear order is
instantiated in calendars, volume sliders, number lines,
and scientific graphs, and even implicitly in written text
(Ingold, 2007; Tversky, 2011). It is a taken-for-granted
cornerstone of visual culture, at least in industrialized
societies.
The principle of linear order also appears to occupy a
privileged place in human cognition. Within high-literacy,
industrialized societies, the ordered line is deployed spon-
taneously as an organizational strategy (Bergen & Lau,
2012; Fuhrman & Boroditsky, 2010; Tversky, Kugelmass, &
Winter, 1991) and serves as a powerful reasoning tool
(De Soto, London, & Handel, 1965). In fact, adults in such
cultures operate with implicitly linear mental representa-
tions of number (e.g., Dehaene, Bossini, & Giraux, 1993;
Restle, 1970), time (e.g., Ishihara, Keller, Rossetti, & Prinz,
2008; Núñez & Cooperrider, 2013; Price, 2009), and other
ordered concepts (Gevers, Reynvoet, & Fias, 2003; van
Dijck & Fias, 2011). Implicit notions of linear order are
even evident in children before they can read (McCrink &
Opfer, 2014; Nuerk et al., 2015).
Linear order thus appears to be a fixture of conven-
tional representational practices and of human cognition.
But what are the origins of this principle, and how has it
become such a fixture? One possibility is that representa-
tional practices exhibiting linear order are ubiquitous
because of the centrality of the principle in cognition.
Corresponding Author:
Kensy Cooperrider, University of Chicago, Department of Psychology,
5848 S. University Ave., Chicago, IL 60637
E-mail: kensy@uchicago.edu
600 Cooperrider et al.
Conversely, the principle may be central in cognition
because of the ubiquity of representational practices that
exhibit it. Current evidence hints at a more complex rela-
tionship that goes beyond these chicken-or-egg extremes.
For instance, in cultures whose members share an intu-
ition about the orientation of ordered lines, this intuition
mirrors representational practices, such as writing (e.g.,
Bergen & Lau, 2012; Shaki, Fischer, & Petrusic, 2009;
Tversky et al., 1991; Zebian, 2005).
The precise relationship between conventional repre-
sentations and intuitions about linear order is hard to
disentangle in high-literacy, industrialized cultures. In
such societies, it is difficult to rule out influence from
representational conventions, even in preliterate children
(Nuerk et al., 2015). The scant work that has been done
with more isolated indigenous groups has focused on
one instantiation of linear order in particular—the num-
ber line—and has presented a mixed picture. Dehaene,
Izard, Spelke, and Pica (2008a) had Mundurucu (Brazil)
participants perform a number-line estimation task in
which they were asked to indicate the appropriate loca-
tion of numerical stimuli (e.g., sets of dots) on a graphical
line. Many Mundurucu participants mapped the stimuli
on the line according to their magnitude, a mapping con-
sistent with the principle of linear order. But a significant
subset of participants produced bimodal responses, map-
ping small numerosities to one endpoint and large
numerosities to the other (Dehaene, Izard, Spelke, &
Pica, 2008b). Núñez, Cooperrider, and Wassmann (2012)
performed the same task with unschooled Yupno (Papua
New Guinea) participants. Strikingly, all responded in a
categorical fashion, using only the endpoints of the line.
Responses by participants in both cultural groups thus
call to mind another strategy for organizing abstract rela-
tions: spatial grouping. Both linear order and spatial
grouping have been argued to be fundamental spatial
organization principles in both graphical practices and
reasoning (De Soto et al., 1965; Tversky, 2011).1 How-
ever, the possibility that grouping might rival or even
eclipse linear order in some cultures has not been
investigated.
Key questions about the origins of linear order thus
remain open. First, it is unclear whether members of cul-
tures that lack representational practices involving linear
order do indeed have intuitions about the principle. The
number-line estimation task cannot provide satisfying
answers to this question because of its constraints: It
imposes a particular spatial organizational strategy (i.e., a
line), in a particular orientation (i.e., left to right), and
assesses whether people can make sense of it. Imposing
this graphical representation could spark intuitions about
the ordered line; on the other hand, first establishing the
extremes of the set may foreground the relationship
between each additional stimulus and those extremes,
inviting categorical responding. Second, to the extent
that intuitions about linear order are evident in cultures
that lack conventional representations involving the prin-
ciple, further questions remain about when and how the
principle might be used. Would people in such cultures
use linear order to the same extent as people in the
United States, or would they instead favor spatial group-
ing? And if they were to use linear order, would their
lines take a consistent spatial form?
To address these questions, we examined spontane-
ous spatial representations of abstract relations in the
Yupno and in U.S. undergraduates. In U.S. society, as in
all contemporary industrialized societies, conventional
representations exhibiting linear order abound. Yupno
culture, by contrast, lacks calendrical systems, linear
measurement tools, writing, or other conventional prac-
tices involving ordered lines, and many Yupno adults
have not had formal schooling (for additional informa-
tion, see the Supplemental Material available online and
Wassmann, 1993). We used an open-ended task in which
participants were asked to arrange sets of cards differing
in the size or numerosity represented. This task allowed
us to see when people recruited linear order, if at all, and
how they implemented it. In Study 1, we used a basic
version of the spatial-arrangement task; in Studies 2 and
3, we altered the procedure to highlight the possibility of
construing the sets categorically. These different versions
of the task allowed us to probe the strength of intuitions
about linear order in the two groups.2
Study 1
Method
Participants.  Yupno adults (n = 13) participated in the
task in exchange for a small gift. They were tested in the
village of Gua, in the Yupno valley of Papua New Guinea.
At the time of data collection, the valley was not con-
nected by road to any urban centers, and it did not have
electricity, telecommunications services, or tourist infra-
structure. Area residents make their living by subsistence
farming (see the Supplemental Material for further ethno-
graphic details). One Yupno participant was eliminated
for failing to understand the instructions. Thus, the final
sample consisted of 12 participants (6 women). The
majority of these participants (n = 9) had no formal
schooling whatsoever, and all were “unschooled” accord-
ing to the cutoff used in previous research in this popula-
tion (i.e., no education beyond sixth grade; Núñez et al.,
2012).3 Undergraduates (n = 16) at the University of Cali-
fornia, San Diego (UCSD), participated in exchange for
course credit (12 women).
Ordered Line 601
Materials. The arrangement task was adapted from
Tversky et al. (1991). In the original task, participants
placed stickers on square pieces of paper. In our version,
to avoid providing a rectilinear frame, we instead asked
participants to arrange circular cards on a large circular
sheet. Further, our version of the task used cards rather
than stickers, to allow for adjustments and rearranging.
Each set of cards represented a domain that was either
categorical or orderable. The categorical stimuli were of
two types: animals (a picture of a pig or dog) and shapes
(a blob or squiggly line). The orderable stimuli were also
of two types: size (a circle with a size that varied across
stimuli) and numerosity (from 1 to 10 dots).4 Each size
card showed a centered blue circle, which ranged in
diameter from 1 cm to 5.5 cm, in increments of 0.5 cm.
Each numerosity card showed a pseudorandom arrange-
ment of black dots, each 1 cm in diameter. Half of the
sets consisted of four cards, and half consisted of five
cards. For the categorical stimuli, four-card sets always
involved two tokens of each category (e.g., two pigs, two
dogs), and five-card sets involved two tokens of one
category and three of the other. The orderable stimuli
consisted of both consecutive sets (e.g., a four-card
numerosity set with cards depicting 1, 2, 3, and 4 dots)
and nonconsecutive sets (e.g., cards depicting 1, 2, 5, and
9 dots). All stimuli were printed on circular cards (8 cm
in diameter) and laminated.
Procedure. Participants were tested individually. They
sat in front of a large blue circular sheet (105 cm in diam-
eter) and were instructed: “I am going to give you a
mixed-up group of cards. Look them over and lay them
out in an organized way.” The instructions were devel-
oped in collaboration with an academic linguist with
good Yupno proficiency and a native speaker of Yupno
with good English proficiency; they were expressly
designed not to bias participants toward any particular
spatial arrangement. For the Yupno participants, prere-
corded instructions spoken in Yupno by a native speaker
were played from a laptop, and a native speaker of
Yupno with good English proficiency was present to
facilitate communication. For the U.S. participants, the
instructions were presented orally by the experimenter.
The experimenter, positioned to the left and slightly in
front of participants, handed the shuffled sets of cards to
them, one set at a time. Participants arranged 12 sets of
cards, presented in two blocks of 6 sets each. Each block
consisted of two categorical sets (one of animals and one
of shapes), a size set, a brightness set (see note 4), and
two numerosity sets. The sets were presented either in
that order or with the positions of the categorical and
numerosity sets switched. Whether participants began
with categorical sets and ended with numerosity sets or
vice versa was counterbalanced across participants (see
the Supplemental Material for the card sets and lists
used). Participants’ arrangements were documented with
video or still photographs, taken from a position facing
the participants.
Between the two blocks, participants completed a
brief task based on one used previously to induce inter-
val representations (in which exact spatial distance rep-
resents conceptual distance; Tversky et al., 1991). The
task did not induce interval arrangements in either group,
however, and was not used in our later studies.
Analysis
Before analysis, the images of the final arrangements
were cropped so that the participants were not visible.
These cropped images were then coded in a random
order to determine the organizational strategy used (Fig.
1); for linear arrangements, the orientation of the line
was also coded. An arrangement was considered to
exhibit spatial grouping if the cards were put into distinct
piles or if adjacency relations suggested category bound-
aries (e.g., a row with the three pigs on the left and the
two dogs on the right). An arrangement was considered
to exhibit linear order if the cards were arranged in a
path that preserved the order of the elements perfectly
(or if two adjacent cards were in transposed order, which
occurred rarely). An arrangement that met none of these
criteria was coded as “other.” Finally, arrangements exhib-
iting linear order were coded for their orientation relative
to the participant’s body. The eight possible orientations
were rightward, rightward-away, away, leftward-away,
leftward, leftward-toward, toward, and rightward-toward.
For example, a line increasing (larger size, greater numer-
osity) to the participant’s right was coded as “rightward,”
a line increasing in a direction both away from and to the
right of the participant was coded as “rightward-away,”
and a line increasing toward the participant’s body was
coded as “toward.”
The first author (K. C.) coded all the arrangements.
Reliability was assessed by having a second, naive coder
analyze the entire data set. Reliability was 95% for orga-
nizational strategy and 92% for directionality. Disagree-
ments were adjudicated by the second author (T. M.).
The adoption of a particular strategy (e.g., linear order)
was analyzed on a trial-by-trial basis using mixed logit
models, with fixed effects of cultural group (Yupno vs.
U.S.), stimulus type (e.g., size vs. numerosity), and their
interaction, and random effects of both participants and
items, when appropriate. The different types of categorical
stimuli were collapsed in all analyses. All binary predictors
(e.g., cultural group) were centered. For models that ana-
lyzed all three levels of stimulus type (i.e., categorical, size,
and numerosity), size trials acted as a baseline with which
the two other stimulus types were compared.
602 Cooperrider et al.

Categorical Stimuli Orderable Stimuli

Animals Size Numerosity

Spatial Grouping
Linear Order

Not
Applicable

Fig. 1.  Representative arrangements illustrating the two spatial organization strategies: spatial group-
ing (top) and linear order (bottom). Categorical stimuli (left) can be grouped but not ordered, whereas
orderable stimuli (right) can be either grouped or ordered. Each example shown here was produced by
a different participant in Study 2. The examples of spatial grouping were produced by Yupno partici-
pants, and the examples of linear order were produced by U.S. participants.

All models used the maximal converging random-
effects structure justified by the experimental design
(Barr, Levy, Scheepers, & Tily, 2013; see the Supplemen-
tal Material for model specifications). Models were imple-
mented with the lme4 package (Bates, Maechler, Bolker,
& Walker, 2015) in the R statistical software environment
(R Core Team, 2015). Reported proportions are model
estimates, which account for individual- and item-specific
variability.
Results
Spatial grouping.  We first analyzed the use of spatial
grouping, an organizational strategy that may be used for
both categorical (animals, shapes) and orderable (size,
numerosity) domains. The Yupno and U.S. participants
did not differ overall in their use of grouping (p > .32).
This strategy was employed equally often for size stimuli
(M = .04, 95% confidence interval, CI = [.02, .06]) and
numerosity stimuli (M = .03, 95% CI = [.02, .04]), p > .34,
but significantly more often for categorical stimuli (M =
.68, 95% CI = [.63, .73]), b = 5.12, SEM = 0.95, p < .001.
However, a significant interaction, b = −2.76, SEM = 1.37,
p = .044, revealed that this increased use of the grouping
strategy for categorical stimuli was more pronounced
among the U.S. participants (categorical: M = .77, 95% CI =
[.72, .83]; size: M = .01, 95% CI = [.01, .02]; numerosity:
M = .00, 95% CI = [.00, .00]) than among the Yupno (cat-
egorical: M = .56, 95% CI = [.47, .64]; size: M = .08, 95%
CI = [.04, .11]; numerosity: M = .07, 95% CI = [.05, .09]).
No other effects approached significance (all ps > .3).
Thus, although both groups largely reserved the group-
ing strategy for categorical stimuli, this selective use was
stronger among the U.S. participants.
Linear order.  We next analyzed the use of the ordered
line, a strategy that could be applied only to the two
types of orderable stimuli, that is, size and numerosity
stimuli. There were no effects of cultural group (p > .56)
or stimulus type (p > .63). Ordered lines were the domi-
nant response for both stimulus types, for both the Yupno
(size: M = .88, 95% CI = [.76, 1.00]; numerosity: M = .86,
95% CI = [.77, .95]) and the U.S. participants (size: M =
1.00, 95% CI = [.99, 1.00]; numerosity: M = .99, 95% CI =
[.97, 1.00]; Fig. 2). Thus, although the U.S. participants
used linear order numerically more often than did the
Yupno, this effect did not reach significance. Analyses of
the orientations of these ordered lines are presented
later, after Study 3.
Discussion
Despite living in a culture that lacks representational
practices exhibiting linear order, Yupno participants used
this organizational principle spontaneously, to an extent
comparable to that of U.S. participants. Such practices,
therefore, are not necessary to spark the intuition that
order can be represented in a linear arrangement. We
also sought to compare the strength of intuitions about
linear order in the two groups by allowing a competing
strategy—grouping—but it was used rarely for the order-
able stimuli. To create a tension between the strategies,
Ordered Line 603
1.0
Proportion of Trials Using an Ordered Line
.8
.6
.4
.2
.0
Study 1 Study 2
Fig. 2.  Frequency of use of the linear-order strategy for arranging the
size and numerosity stimuli. Results are shown separately for the two
cultural groups (U.S., Yupno) in each of the three studies. Error bars
represent ±1 SE (one error bar is too short to be visible). The propor-
tions shown are estimates from a model of all three studies.
and thus conduct a better test of whether intuitions about
linear order are stronger in U.S. adults than in the Yupno,
in Studies 2 and 3 we manipulated the procedure to high-
light the possibility of spatial grouping.
Study 2
In Study 2, participants again arranged sets of cards, but
they began by arranging pieces of fruit. Fruit is commonly
grouped by category in everyday life in both cultures
(e.g., in marketplaces), and being asked to arrange it
should call to mind this organizational strategy. We rea-
soned that if the Yupno have a weaker intuition about
linear order than U.S. adults do, they might produce fewer
ordered lines after being primed to group by category.
Method
Participants. Yupno adults (n = 19) participated in
exchange for a small gift. Five were eliminated for failing
to understand the instructions. Thus, the final Yupno sam-
ple consisted of 14 participants (4 women). Most (n = 8)
had no exposure to formal schooling whatsoever, and all
were classified as unschooled by the previously used cut-
off (Núñez et al., 2012). UCSD undergraduates (n = 19)
participated in exchange for course credit. Two were
eliminated because of irregularities in the experimental
procedure. Thus, the final U.S. sample consisted of 17
participants (15 women). None of the participants in
Study 2 had participated in Study 1.
Materials.  As in Study 1, the stimuli were either order-
able or categorical. The orderable stimuli were identical
to those in Study 1 (i.e., size and numerosity stimuli). The
categorical stimuli included the same set of animals from
Study 1; the abstract shapes were replaced with more
U.S. ecologically valid concrete objects (rocks and carrying
Yupno bags). We used eight card sets, each consisting of four
cards. Of the orderable stimuli, half were nonconsecutive
and half were consecutive; the nonconsecutive sets
always preceded the consecutive sets.
Procedure.  The procedure was the same as in Study 1,
except for the addition of a fruit-arranging task at the
beginning. For the fruit task, participants were instructed:
“I am going to give you a mixed-up group of objects.
Look them over and lay them out in an organized way.”
Study 3
The experimenter then handed the participant the fruits
in a disorganized handful. Culturally common fruits were
used: oranges, passion fruits, and tree tomatoes for the
Yupno; apples, oranges, and avocados for the U.S. par-
ticipants. There were two trials, each involving two fruits
each of two types. For example, a Yupno participant
might receive two passion fruits and two tree tomatoes
on the first trial and then two oranges and two passion
fruits on the second.
After the fruit-arranging task, participants arranged the
eight sets of cards, one after another, in a fixed order:
one objects set, one animals set, two size sets, two bright-
ness sets, and two numerosity sets (see the Supplemental
Material for the card sets).
Analysis. Coding and analysis were conducted as in
Study 1. Reliability was 94% for organizational strategy
and 95% for directionality.
Results
Spatial grouping. There was no effect of cultural
group on frequency of use of the grouping strategy; the
Yupno and U.S. participants used grouping to the same
degree (p > .21). Once again, grouping was used equally
often for the size stimuli (M = .17, 95% CI = [.13, .21]) and
the numerosity stimuli (M = .18, 95% CI = [.13, .22]), p >
.94, although for both types of stimuli it was used more
than 4 times as often as in Study 1. As before, grouping
was used significantly more often for the categorical
stimuli (M = .78, 95% CI = [.75, .82]), b = 3.50, SEM = 0.65,
p < .001. Although this increased use for categorical stim-
uli was, once again, more pronounced for the U.S. par-
ticipants (categorical: M = .83, 95% CI = [.79, .87]; size:
604 Cooperrider et al.
M = .10, 95% CI = [.07, .14]; numerosity: M = .08, 95% CI =
[.05, .10]) than for the Yupno participants (categorical: M =
.72, 95% CI = [.66, .78]; size: M = .24, 95% CI = [.17, .31];
numerosity: M = .30, 95% CI = [.22, .38]), this effect was
only marginally significant, b = −1.57, SEM = 0.93, p = .09.
No other effects approached significance (all ps > .21).
Linear order. There were no effects of cultural group
(p > .20) or stimulus type (p > .27) on frequency of use
of the linear-order strategy. Ordered lines were the domi-
nant response for both stimulus types, for both the Yupno
(size: M = .61, 95% CI = [.46, .76]; numerosity: M = .63,
95% CI = [.48, .78]) and the U.S. participants (size: M =
.82, 95% CI = [.73, .90]; numerosity: M = .90, 95% CI =
[.83, .97]; Fig. 2). Thus, although the U.S. participants
used linear order numerically more often than the Yupno,
this effect did not reach significance. Analyses of the ori-
entations of these ordered lines are presented later, after
Study 3.
Study 3
In Study 3, we further probed the strength of intuitions
about linear order. In addition to the categorical-priming
task from Study 2, we included a procedural change to
further highlight the possibility of construing the sets cat-
egorically. In Studies 1 and 2, participants received all the
cards in a set at once, which invited them to consider the
set’s overall ordinal structure. In Study 3, after first receiv-
ing the extremes of a set, participants received one card
at a time. This procedure foregrounded the relationship
of each additional card to the extremes, rather than the
overall structure of the set. In this way it was similar to
the number-line estimation task (e.g., Núñez et al., 2012),
which begins with an introduction of the line’s endpoints
as salient anchors.
Method
Participants. Yupno adults (n = 13) participated in
exchange for a small gift. Two were eliminated for failing
to understand the instructions. Thus, the final Yupno
sample consisted of 11 participants (5 women). Most
(n = 8) had no formal education whatsoever, and all
were classified as unschooled by the previously used cut-
off (Núñez et al., 2012). UCSD undergraduates (n = 15)
participated voluntarily in exchange for course credit.
One was eliminated because of irregularities in the
experimental procedure. This left a final sample of 14
U.S. participants (8 women). No participants in Study 3
had participated in either previous study.
Materials.  The materials were similar to those used in
Study 2 (i.e., categorical objects and animals sets and
orderable size and numerosity sets). However, there was
just one six-card set for each category, and the orderable
sets were nonconsecutive (e.g., the numerosity set
depicted 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 dots).
Procedure. Participants began with two trials of the
fruit-arranging task used in Study 2. All participants then
arranged four sets in the following fixed order: objects,
animals, size, and numerosity. For each set, participants
were first given two cards and were instructed, as before,
to “lay them out in an organized way.” They were then
given the four remaining cards one at a time. With each
additional card, they were instructed: “I am going to give
you another card. Carefully look over the whole group
and lay them out in an organized way.” For the categori-
cal sets, the first two cards were tokens of the two catego-
ries; the remaining cards loosely alternated between the
categories. For the orderable sets, the first two cards were
the set’s extremes; the remaining cards loosely alternated
between small and large magnitudes (see the Supple-
mental Material for the card sets and the order in which
the cards within a set were presented).
Analysis.  Participants’ final six-card arrangements were
analyzed in the same way as in Studies 1 and 2. Reliabil-
ity was 95% for organizational strategy and 86% for
directionality.
Results
Spatial grouping. There was no effect of cultural
group on frequency of use of the grouping strategy (p >
.21). Once again, spatial grouping was used equally often
for size stimuli (M = .42, 95% CI = [.36, .48]) and numeros-
ity stimuli (M = .32, 95% CI = [.26, .38]), p > .37, although
the overall use of grouping doubled from Study 2. Again,
grouping was used significantly more for categorical
stimuli (M = .76, 95% CI = [.73, .79]), b = 1.59, SEM = 0.57,
p = .005. Although this increased use of grouping for
categorical stimuli was, yet again, more pronounced for
the U.S. participants (categorical: M = .82, 95% CI = [.80,
.85]; size: M = .32, 95% CI = [.26, .39]; numerosity: M =
.21, 95% CI = [.16, .26]) than for the Yupno participants
(categorical: M = .68, 95% CI = [.64, .71]; size: M = .55,
95% CI = [.49, .61]; numerosity: M = .45, 95% CI = [.39,
.51]), this effect was only marginally significant, b = −1.84,
SEM = 0.99, p = .06. No other effects approached signifi-
cance (all ps > .21).
Linear order.  The use of linear order differed between
the cultural groups; the U.S. participants produced sig-
nificantly more linear arrangements (M = .79, 95% CI =
[.63, .95]) than the Yupno participants did (M = .22, 95%
CI = [.04, .41]), b = −21.34, SEM = 6.48, p < .001 (Fig. 2).
Ordered Line 605
Thus, although the Yupno participants produced ordered
lines on the majority of trials with orderable sets in Stud-
ies 1 and 2, this was no longer the case in Study 3.
Instead, grouping was the dominant strategy for the
Yupno, whereas the ordered line remained the dominant
strategy for the U.S. participants. There was also a mar-
ginal effect of stimulus type, b = 4.22, SEM = 2.30, p = .07;
linear order was used more for the numerosity stimuli
(M = .60, 95% CI = [.39, .80]) than for the size stimuli
(M = .48, 95% CI = [.27, .69]). This, in turn, was driven by
a marginal interaction between cultural group and stimu-
lus type, b = 8.61, SEM = 4.54, p = .06: The Yupno pro-
duced more ordered lines for the numerosity stimuli
(M = .36, 95% CI = [.02, .69]) than for the size stimuli
(M = .09, 95% CI = [.00, .28]), whereas the U.S. participants
produced ordered lines equally often for the size stimuli
(M = .79, 95% CI = [.55, 1.00]) and the numerosity stimuli
(M = .79, 95% CI = [.55, 1.00]). We next present analyses
of the orientations of ordered lines in all three studies.
Analyses Combining All Studies
To confirm that the two cultural groups were differen-
tially affected by task procedures, we analyzed the data
from all three studies together. The mixed logit model
was analogous to the models for the individual studies,
with additional fixed effects for study (1–3) and its inter-
actions, and with Study 1 acting as a baseline against
which the other studies were compared. Because the fre-
quency of use of linear order did not differ between size
and numerosity stimuli in any of the studies, stimulus
type was not included as a fixed effect in the analysis of
linear order.
Spatial grouping
Use of grouping did not differ between the size stimuli
(M = .15, 95% CI = [.11, .19]) and the numerosity stimuli
(M = .11, 95% CI = [.08, .14]), p > .32, but was significantly
greater for the categorical stimuli (M = .73, 95% CI = [.69,
.77]), b = 5.04, SEM = 1.04, p < .001. Yet again, this
increase was marginally more pronounced for the U.S.
participants (categorical: M = .82, 95% CI = [.78, .86]; size:
M = .07, 95% CI = [.04, .10]; numerosity: M = .04, 95%
CI = [.02, .07]) than for the Yupno participants (categori-
cal: M = .62, 95% CI = [.55, .69]; size: M = 0.25, 95% CI =
[.18, .31]; numerosity: M = .19, 95% CI = [.14, .25]), b =
−2.19, SEM = 1.22, p = .07. There was also a highly signifi-
cant influence of Study, b = 1.29, SEM = 0.50, p < .01.
grouping was more common in Study 2 (M = .36, 95%
CI = [.31, .42]) than in Study 1 (M = .29, 95% CI = [.24,
.34]), and more common yet again in Study 3 (M = .57,
95% CI = [.50, .63]). No other effects approached signifi-
cance (ps > .24).
Linear order
Use of linear order decreased reliably in later studies
(Study 1: M = .94, 95% CI = [.90, .97]; Study 2: M = .75,
95% CI = [.68, .81]; Study 3: M = .54, 95% CI = [.40, .68]),
b = −5.16, SEM = 1.59, p = .001. More important, this
influence of task procedures differed significantly
between the cultural groups, b = −7.41, SEM = 2.75, p =
.007. To investigate this interaction, we analyzed the two
cultural groups separately. Among the Yupno, the use of
linear order was affected significantly by the procedural
changes across the three studies (Study 1: M = .87, 95%
CI = [.79, .94]; Study 2: M = .61, 95% CI = [.49, .72]; Study
3: M = .21, 95% CI = [.05, .37]), b = −7.17, SEM = 2.91,
p = .014. The U.S. participants, by contrast, were largely
unaffected by the procedural manipulations, continuing
to rely on linear order in every study (Study 1: M = .99,
95% CI = [.98, 1.00]; Study 2: M = .86, 95% CI = [.79, .94];
Study 3: M = .80, 95% CI = [.64, .95]), p > .36. The context
in which participants were asked to arrange the cards
thus had a selective impact on the Yupno, dampening
their use of the ordered line.
Directionality of ordered lines
We next analyzed the direction of increase (i.e., larger
size, greater numerosity) in participants’ ordered lines.
This analysis collapsed the data across all the studies
because of the limited number of ordered lines produced
by the Yupno in Study 3. Overall, the Yupno produced
ordered lines that were highly variable in their orienta-
tion, and significantly more variable than those produced
by the U.S. participants, χ2(1, N = 276) = 92.5, p < .001,
Wallraff rank-sum test of angular distance (Fig. 3). Indeed,
among the U.S. participants, almost all the ordered lines
(94.9%) were along the left-right axis, and they were
tightly concentrated around a rightward orientation, with
a bootstrapped 95% CI spanning only 5° (M = 3.3°, 95%
CI = [6.3°, 1.1°]; circular dispersion: κ = 1.8). By contrast,
nearly half of the Yupno participants’ lines (46.3%) were
not oriented along the left-right axis. Their lines exhib-
ited a broad range of orientations, with a 95% CI span-
ning 38° (M = 21.4°, 95% CI = [3.4°, 41.3°]; circular
dispersion: κ = 0.8). Thus, the U.S. participants produced
ordered lines that were highly consistent in a rightward
orientation, whereas the Yupno produced ordered lines
that were oriented more freely around the entire 360°
range of possible directions.
General Discussion
In high-literacy, industrialized societies, the principle of lin-
ear order is a cornerstone of both visual culture and every-
day cognition. To illuminate the origins of this principle, we
606 Cooperrider et al.
Yupno Participants U.S. Participants
Fig. 3. Directionality of the ordered lines produced across all three
studies. Each circular plot is divided into eight sections, according to
the scheme used for coding orientation (rightward, rightward-away,
away, etc.). Within these sections, each spoke represents an actual
ordered line. The spokes are plotted around the centers of the sections,
with Gaussian noise to avoid overplotting.
examined how abstract relations are organized spatially in
two cultural groups, one with diverse and ubiquitous repre-
sentational practices exhibiting the principle (U.S.) and one
without such practices (Yupno). Members of both groups
organized sets of orderable cards into lines, which suggests
that familiarity with conventional linear representations is
not necessary to spark intuitions about linear order. But the
two groups did differ in when they used the principle and
how they implemented it: The U.S. participants were stead-
fast in their use of linear order, regardless of task proce-
dures, and their ordered lines were consistently oriented
rightward; the Yupno participants, in contrast, relied on lin-
ear order primarily when grouping was not a salient alterna-
tive, and their lines were oriented idiosyncratically.
If the notion of linear order is not rooted ultimately in
visual culture, then where does it come from? Although it
is tempting to consider the principle an a priori intuition,
possible experiential sources abound. Rudiments of linear
order are present in natural phenomena, such as animal
tracks or human footprints, which embody an unfolding
sequence. Similarly, when groups of people walk on nar-
row paths, they form lines that can be construed as
ordered. It may also have been possible for participants to
discover the utility of linear order during the arrangement
task itself: Putting a series of cards in a line may facilitate
a series of pairwise comparisons, which are necessary to
arrive at a full ordering of a set of elements. Thus, the fact
that the Yupno and the U.S. participants produced similar
arrangements does not necessarily mean that they drew
on similar—let alone a priori—mental representations.
Rather, the Yupno may have deployed an ad hoc organi-
zational scheme, whereas the U.S. participants may have
drawn on an internalized convention.
Lifelong experience with graphical practices appears
to regiment intuitions about linear order. By regimenta-
tion, we mean a process in which culture reinforces cer-
tain habits of thinking and behaving, with consequences
for when and how those habits are called upon. For
example, experience with conventions for driving on
one side of the road may encourage broad use of that
principle (e.g., when one is walking on the sidewalk)
and entrench a particular way of implementing it (e.g.,
walking on the right). The same consequences can be
seen in the case of linear order. U.S. participants make
broad use of this principle across contexts; in fact, it may
be so entrenched that it springs to mind whenever order-
able elements are in play, even in implicit tasks (e.g.,
Dehaene et al., 1993). Yupno participants, who have not
had a lifetime of exposure to linear order, abandon this
principle when categorical construals are highlighted.
This pattern sheds light on earlier results regarding
Yupno participants’ performance on the number-line
estimation task (Núñez et al., 2012). That task, much like
the procedure used in Study 3, introduces salient
anchors—the line’s endpoints—and thus invites a cate-
gorical construal. In both the number-line task and our
card-arrangement task in Study 3, the Yupno overwhelm-
ingly favored spatial grouping. Graphical practices
also regiment intuitions about linear order by determin-
ing how it is implemented. Ordered lines in the visual
culture of the United States—and wherever Latin script
predominates—proceed rightward. As has been demon-
strated in prior studies (e.g., Bergen & Lau, 2012; Tversky
et al., 1991), we found that U.S. participants strongly
favored this direction. In contrast, the Yupno, without
this regimenting influence, produced lines oriented in all
directions.
We also found a pattern—weak but present numeri-
cally across all three studies—in which U.S. participants
used spatial grouping for categorical stimuli more than
the Yupno did. A possible interpretation of these results
is that spatial organization strategies in U.S. participants
are regimented generally such that linear order is selec-
tively applied to orderable stimuli and spatial grouping is
selectively applied to categorical stimuli. In the case of
grouping, this regimentation may be due to experience
with Venn diagrams and other graphics that colocate ele-
ments of the same category. Without the regimenting
influence of this visual culture, the Yupno appear to be
more flexible in their spatial organization strategies.
Together, these findings hint at how the ordered line
has come to occupy a privileged place in both visual
culture and cognition. Unlike other representational con-
ventions, such as writing (Gelb, 1963), tree diagrams
(Lima, 2014), and number lines proper (Núñez, 2011), the
ordered line likely did not have to be invented. Rudi-
ments of linear order in the natural world, as well as
Ordered Line 607
expediencies of organizing information, could have moti-
vated its initial manifestations. But such early uses would
likely have been limited and evanescent. Since the Mid-
dle Ages, however, the uses of linear order have multi-
plied as a result of the growing importance of quantitative
information in accounting, navigation, timekeeping, and
other domains (Crosby, 1997); at the same time, ordered
lines have become more durable and portable, enshrined
in books, other artifacts, and now digital forms (e.g.,
Buringh & Van Zanden, 2009). As high-literacy, industri-
alized cultures have become saturated with an ever-
increasing number of manifestations of linear order, the
principle has, in turn, become increasingly regimented
as a powerful tool of everyday cognition.
Action Editor
Ayse K. Uskul served as action editor for this article.
Author Contributions
All the authors developed the general research direction and
designed Study 1. K. Cooperrider and R. Núñez designed Studies 2
and 3. K. Cooperrider and R. Núñez collected the Yupno data, and
all the authors supervised collection of the U.S. data. T. Marghetis
conducted the statistical analyses, in consultation with K. Cooper-
rider. All the authors interpreted the results. K. Cooperrider drafted
the manuscript, and critical revisions were provided by T. Marghe-
tis and R. Núñez. All the authors approved the final manuscript.
Acknowledgments
We thank the Yupno residents of Gua for their participation and
assistance, James Slotta for his help with the Yupno language, and
Danielle Jacques and Natalie Allen for their research assistance.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with
respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.
Funding
The National Geographic Society (Grant 9131-12) funded the
fieldwork on which the reported studies are based. The National
Science Foundation’s Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center
(Grant SBE-0541957) funded the postdoctoral research of K.
Cooperrider.
Supplemental Material
Additional supporting information can be found at http://
journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0956797617691548
Open Practices
All materials have been made publicly available via the Open
Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/8dvsz.
The complete Open Practices Disclosure for this article can be
found at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0956
797617691548. This article has received the badge for Open
Materials. More information about the Open Practices badges can
be found at http://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/
badges.
Notes
1. Linear order is sometimes considered an elaboration of spa-
tial grouping. These strategies share the idea that like goes with
like, but linear order represents additional information (for dis-
cussion, see Tversky et al., 1991). However, this does not imply
that linear order is always a better representation.
2. Following the recommendations of Simmons, Nelson, and
Simonsohn (2012), we report in this article our method for
determining sample sizes, all data exclusions, all manipulations,
and all measures.
3. In all three studies, “unschooled” Yupno participants with a
small amount of elementary education did not behave differ-
ently from those with no exposure to education whatsoever
(see the Supplemental Material for analyses). Also in all three
studies, the Yupno participants were run first; the Yupno sam-
ple size for each study was determined by estimating the total
number of unschooled adults available to participate, and then
attempting to distribute this number evenly across the three
studies. The sample size for the U.S. participants was then
matched to the Yupno sample size, with a few additional par-
ticipants in case procedural irregularities warranted exclusions.
4. We also prepared orderable circular stimuli that represented
brightness, from near-white to black. However, once we began
testing at the Yupno field site—which was indoors and lacked
overhead lighting—it became apparent that the fine gradations
of brightness were difficult to differentiate. We thus removed the
brightness items from Study 3 and excluded them from all analyses
(see the Supplemental Material for analyses including these stimuli).
U.S. participants always received the same stimuli as the Yupno.
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