Negative numbers are generated in the mind

The goal of the present study was to disentangle two possible representations of negative numbers - the holistic representation, where absolute magnitude is integrated with polarity; and the components representation, where absolute magnitude is stored separately from polarity. Participants' performance was examined in two tasks involving numbers from -100 to 100. In the numerical comparison task, participants had to decide which number of a pair was numerically larger/smaller. In the number line task, participants were presented with a spatial number line on which they had to place a number. The results of both tasks support the components representation of negative numbers. The findings suggest that processing of negative numbers does not involve retrieval of their meaning from memory, but rather the integration of the polarity sign with the digits' magnitudes.