Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T20:38:32.079Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Numerical abstraction: It ain't broke

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2009

Jessica F. Cantlon ,
Sara Cordes ,
Melissa E. Libertus  and
Elizabeth M. Brannon
Jessica F. Cantlon
Affiliation:
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708. [email protected]@[email protected]@duke.edu
Sara Cordes
Affiliation:
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708. [email protected]@[email protected]@duke.edu
Melissa E. Libertus
Affiliation:
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708. [email protected]@[email protected]@duke.edu
Elizabeth M. Brannon
Affiliation:
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708. [email protected]@[email protected]@duke.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The dual-code proposal of number representation put forward by Cohen Kadosh & Walsh (CK&W) accounts for only a fraction of the many modes of numerical abstraction. Contrary to their proposal, robust data from human infants and nonhuman animals indicate that abstract numerical representations are psychologically primitive. Additionally, much of the behavioral and neural data cited to support CK&W's proposal is, in fact, neutral on the issue of numerical abstraction.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 3-4 , August 2009 , pp. 331 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cantlon, J. F. & Brannon, E. M. (2006) The effect of heterogeneity on numerical ordering in rhesus monkeys. Infancy 9(2):173–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, S. (2004) Bootstrapping and the origin of concepts. Daedalus 133(1):59–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Church, R. M. & Meck, W. H. (1984) The numerical attribute of stimuli. In: Animal cognition, ed. Roitblat, H. L., Bever, T. G. & Terrace, H. S., pp. 445–64. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Dehaene, S. & Akhavein, R. (1995) Attention, automaticity, and levels of representation in number processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 21(2):314–26.Google ScholarPubMed
Dehaene, S., Spelke, E. S., Pinel, P., Stanescu, R. & Tsivkin, S. (1999) Sources of mathematical thinking: Behavioral and brain-imaging evidence. Science 284(5416):970–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Droit-Volet, S., Clement, A. & Fayol, M. (2008) Time, number and length: Similarities and differences in discrimination in adults and children. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 61(12):1827–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gallistel, C. R. & Gelman, R. (2000) Non-verbal numerical cognition: From reals to integers. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(2):59–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ganor-Stern, D. & Tzelgov, J. (2008) Across-notation automatic numerical processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 34(2):430–37.Google ScholarPubMed
Hauser, M. D., Dehaene, S., Dehaene-Lambertz, G. & Patalano, A. L. (2002) Spontaneous number discrimination of multi-format auditory stimuli in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus). Cognition 86(2):B23–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hung, Y.-H., Hung, D. L., Tzeng, O. J.-L. & Wu, D. H. (2008) Flexible spatial mapping of different notations of numbers in Chinese readers. Cognition 106(3):1441–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ito, Y. & Hatta, T. (2003) Semantic processing of Arabic, Kanji, and Kana numbers: Evidence from interference in physical and numerical size judgments. Memory and Cognition 31(3):360–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jordan, K. E. & Brannon, E. M. (2006) The multisensory representation of number in infancy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103(9):3486–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jordan, K. E., Brannon, E. M., Logothetis, N. K. & Ghazanfar, A. A. (2005) Monkeys match the number of voices they hear to the number of faces they see. Current Biology 15:1–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordan, K. E., MacLean, E. L. & Brannon, E. M. (2008) Monkeys tally and match quantities across senses. Cognition 108(3):617–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kobayashi, T., Hiraki, K. & Hasegawa, T. (2005) Auditory-visual intermodal matching of small numerosities in 6-month-old infants. Developmental Science 8(5):409–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nieder, A., Diester, I. & Tudusciuc, O. (2006) Temporal and spatial enumeration processes in the primate parietal cortex. Science 313(5792):1431–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Starkey, P., Spelke, E. S. & Gelman, R. (1983) Detection of intermodal numerical correspondences by human infants. Science 222(4620):179–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wood, J. N. & Spelke, E. S. (2005) Infants' enumeration of actions: Numerical discrimination and its signature limits. Developmental Science 8(2):173–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed