Book contents
- The Materiality of Numbers
- The Materiality of Numbers
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Numbers in a Nutshell
- 2 Converging Perspectives on Numbers
- 3 The Brain in Numbers
- 4 Bodies and Behaviors
- 5 Language in Numbers
- 6 Global and Regional Patterns
- 7 Materiality in Numbers
- 8 Materiality in Cognition
- 9 Making Quantity Tangible and Manipulable
- 10 Tallies and Other Devices That Accumulate
- 11 Interpreting Prehistoric Artifacts
- 12 Devices That Accumulate and Group
- 13 Handwritten Notations
- 14 The Materiality of Numbers
- References
- Index
3 - The Brain in Numbers
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023
- The Materiality of Numbers
- The Materiality of Numbers
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Numbers in a Nutshell
- 2 Converging Perspectives on Numbers
- 3 The Brain in Numbers
- 4 Bodies and Behaviors
- 5 Language in Numbers
- 6 Global and Regional Patterns
- 7 Materiality in Numbers
- 8 Materiality in Cognition
- 9 Making Quantity Tangible and Manipulable
- 10 Tallies and Other Devices That Accumulate
- 11 Interpreting Prehistoric Artifacts
- 12 Devices That Accumulate and Group
- 13 Handwritten Notations
- 14 The Materiality of Numbers
- References
- Index
Summary
Numbers involve various functions, capacities, regions, and connections of the brain. Here we will focus on those important to understanding how numbers emerge and become elaborated, particularly through the use of material forms but also in regard to spoken forms of numbers:
Numerosity is the innate sense of quantity that humans share with many other species. In humans and nonhuman primates, numerosity is a function of the intraparietal sulcus, a region of the parietal lobe. Numerosity governs what we can and cannot see, quantity-wise, and this influences both our need to use material forms and how we use them.
Categorizing is the ability that groups or differentiates objects according to the similarities or dissimilarities of their properties, relations, or functions, while abstraction is the process of deriving general concepts and rules from specific properties, relations, or functions. Small sets of objects – singles and pairs – have quantities that are perceptible, and the similarities and dissimilarities of these properties as shared between sets are the plausible basis for concepts of one and two. These concepts are then expressed materially through the fingers, or verbally by describing or naming an object that exemplifies the quantity.
The mental number line (MNL) is the ability to conceptualize numbers as arranged along a linear continuum. The MNL might be an innate tendency for representational structure that influences numerical conceptualization and expression, or it might be an effect of interacting with material forms like writing, a debate that is currently unsettled in the literature.
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- Information
- The Materiality of NumbersEmergence and Elaboration from Prehistory to Present, pp. 43 - 69Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023