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16 Math, Monkeys, and the Developing Brain--Jessica F. Cantlon
Pages 293-312

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From page 293...
... Additionally, what cognitive abilities allow children to rapidly acquire the formal mathematics knowl edge that took our ancestors many millennia to invent? Current research aims to discover the origins and organization of numerical information in humans using clues from child development, the organization of the human brain, and animal cognition.
From page 294...
... Instead of counting, children and animals can mentally represent quantities approximately, in an analog format. Studies from our group and others have shown that human adults, children, and nonhuman primates share cognitive algorithms for encoding numerical values as analogs, comparing numerical values, and arithmetic (Meck and Church, 1983; Gallistel, 1989; Feigenson et al., 2004; Cantlon et al., 2009c)
From page 295...
... So far, there is evidence that nonhuman primates share three essential numerical processing mechanisms with modern humans: an ability to represent numerical values (Brannon and Terrace, 1998; Nieder, 2005; Cantlon and Brannon, 2006, 2007b) , a general mechanism for mental comparison (Cantlon and Brannon, 2005)
From page 296...
... Two different pairs of numerical values that have the same ratio (e.g., 2 and 4, 4 and 8) have the same amount of overlap, or the same probability of confusion.
From page 297...
... However, that does not tell us anything about the process by which two numerical values are compared. We have identified a signature of mental comparison in monkeys that is commonly observed when adult humans make judgments of magnitudes: the semantic congruity effect (Cantlon and Brannon, 2005; Holyoak, 1977)
From page 298...
... Our data from nonhuman primates indicate that the mental comparison process that yields the semantic congruity effect is a primitive, generalized, nonverbal mental comparison process for judging quantities and other onedimensional properties.
From page 299...
... (2011) showed that pigeons can compare numerical values, and in doing so they represent an abstract numerical rule that can be applied to novel numerical values.
From page 300...
... In fact, there is evidence from multiple sources that analog numerical processing recruits a common neural substrate in monkeys, adult humans, and young children (Fig.
From page 301...
... These neural data support the conclusion derived from the behavioral data that there is continuity between humans and nonhuman animals in the mechanisms underlying analog numerical representations. THEN THERE WERE SYMBOLS A long history of studies with preverbal human infants has shown that they too possess an ability to quantify objects with approximate, analog representations (Feigenson et al., 2004)
From page 302...
... For example, adult humans can represent loudness, handgrip pressure, time, size, and brightness as numerical values. Finally, evidence from the semantic congruity effect (described earlier)
From page 303...
... However, it remains unclear what aspects of numerical processing operate independently of other psychophysical and conceptual domains. Most previous neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies controlled for many nonnumerical abilities (eye movements, spatial attention, memory, semantic knowledge)
From page 304...
... Studies in young children provide evidence that different quantitative representations have a common foundation, in the sense that they develop together. As described earlier, numerical discriminations are modulated by the ratio between the values, as per Weber's law.
From page 305...
... It is important to note, however, that asymmetries in relations between magnitudes could arise either through a biologically privileged psychological mapping (de Hevia and Spelke, 2009) or through correlational and statistical learning [see Bonn and Cantlon (2012)
From page 306...
... Relations among different quantities also have been found at the neural level in adult humans and nonhuman primates. As mentioned above, individuals with spatial neglect resulting from damage to parietal cortex can exhibit impaired numerical processing.
From page 307...
... Math, Monkeys, and the Developing Brain  /  307 sure to correlations in the environment. Under this account, relations among magnitudes would arise from the strength of their correlations in the natural environment.
From page 308...
... is the first formal cognitive step toward acquiring the uniquely human capacity for complex symbolic math. In the next section we discuss how the "primitive" analog numerical abilities are related to symbolic math in humans.
From page 309...
... Behavioral data, like those described earlier, provide evidence of a relationship between the skills required for analog numerical processing and those that are used in formal mathematics by children. Neuroimaging studies of children can provide an independent source of data on whether there is a common foundation for analog numerical abilities and formal math by testing whether a common neural substrate underlies both faculties.
From page 310...
... and that prefrontal regions play a unique role in associating analog numerical values with arbitrary symbols at the level of single neurons in monkeys (Diester and Nieder, 2007)
From page 311...
... Throughout development, analog numerical representations interact with the uniquely human ability to represent numerical values symbolically, suggesting a relationship between "primitive" and modern numerical systems in humans. Data from neural analyses of numerical processing support this conclusion and provide independent confirmation that these are in fact related systems.


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