January 30, 2026 – 1:00 p.m. On-site and online session (Room M204, Faculty of Psychology and Speech Therapy). Language: Spanish.

Ana Calviño

Universidad de Málaga

At the beginning of learning, when we are first taught numbers and letters, it is common to mix them up. However, we soon manage to distinguish them as separate systems. Letters and numbers, despite their similarities, are rapidly processed independently because they belong to systems governed by different rules. Knowing that they are categorized as distinct elements, the question is when this differentiation occurs: either at later stages of conceptual activation—implying a shared visual recognition process—or at early stages of visual recognition, where the processing of both types of stimuli would be fundamentally independent.

The project led by predoctoral researcher Ana Calviño López aims to shed light on this issue by drawing on existing models of functional dependence and independence between numbers and letters. To this end, the first block employs behavioral methodology, with several studies designed to assess whether stimulus category affects processing in an unconscious manner, using alphanumeric decision tasks and character transposition paradigms. The second block, currently underway, complements these data through the recording of event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically analyzing whether early components such as the N150 act as markers of the segregation between alphabetic and numerical codes. Taken together, the results provide crucial evidence regarding the early specialization of the human visual system for these cultural symbols.

Bio

Ana Calviño López holds a degree in Psychology from the University of Málaga and a Master’s in Cognitive Neuroscience of Language from the BCBL. She is currently a predoctoral researcher funded by an FPU contract at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Málaga. Her doctoral work, conducted in collaboration with the Numerical Cognition Laboratory and supervised by Dr. Javier García Orza, focuses on the processing of numbers and letters in adult populations. She is currently undertaking a research stay in Valencia under the supervision of Professor Marta Vergara, specializing in the analysis of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs).