Independent adaptation mechanisms for numerosity and size perception provide evidence against a common sense of magnitude

Anobile, Giovanni; Burr, David; Iaia, Marika; Marinelli, Chiara Valeria; Angelelli, Paola; Turi, Marco

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-31893-6

Cited by 23 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…This suggests that the visual system directly encodes variability of hue, as it does orientation (Norman et al, 2015) all visual domains we should expect variability aftereffects of colour to carry-over to domains as diverse as size and facial expression. The connection between accuracy in performing particular visual statistical judgments (mean or variance) across domains has precedence in the literature (Haberman, Brady, et al, 2015;Yang et al, 2018, but see also Anobile et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation to variance generalizes across visual domains.

Maule¹,

Franklin²

2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Processing the vast amount of visual information available from the world ought to pose a significant challenge to the brain. One of the ways in which the brain appears to encode the structure inherent in the world is through summary statistical representations (e.g. mean size, colour etc). This study investigates whether variance perception can be adapted for colour, and then whether the variance adaptation aftereffects generalise from colour to another visual domain. In a series of four experiments we find aftereffects reflecting adaptation to the variance of hues in an ensemblesuch that prolonged exposure to a highly variable ensemble of hues makes subsequent ensembles appear less variable in hue. We also found that this effect partially generalised to the perception of orientation varianceadaptation to highly variable colour ensembles made subsequent ensembles also appear less variable in orientation. This is a novel demonstration of adaptation aftereffects reflecting processing of visual ensemble information across domains. The results could imply a neural mechanism encoding visual variance which is not selective to the domain from which the variance signal is derived. This mechanism may form the basis for cross-domain visual comparisons, and may play a role in predictive coding, enabling the brain to calibrate to the complexity of the visual environment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation to variance generalizes across visual domains.

Maule¹,

Franklin²

2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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“…However, an alternative explanation may account for our results. In fact, although ATOM has been one of the most prominent theories in recent decades, an increasing number of studies providing behavioural and neural evidence of inconsistencies in spatial, temporal and number representations suggests that distinct modules are responsible for processing quantities [27][28][29][30][31] . According to this hypothesis, it would not be necessary to invoke a unique magnitude system to explain our findings.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of an abstract concept across magnitude dimensions by fish

Petrazzini

Brennan

2020

Sci Rep

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Mastering relational concepts and applying them to different contexts presupposes abstraction capacities and implies a high level of cognitive sophistication. One way to investigate extrapolative abilities is to assess cross-dimensional application of an abstract relational magnitude rule to new domains. Here we show that angelfish initially trained to choose either the shorter of two lines in a spatial task (line-length discrimination task) or the array with “fewer” items (numerical discrimination task) spontaneously transferred the learnt rule to novel stimuli belonging to the previously unseen dimension demonstrating knowledge of the abstract concept of “smaller”. Our finding challenges the idea that the ability to master abstract magnitude concepts across domains is unique to humans and suggests that the circuits involved in rule learning and magnitude processing might be evolutionary conserved.

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“…In one study, Anobile et al . measured perceptual adaptation and discrimination thresholds for two sensory parameters, size and numerosity . They posit that if numerosity discrimination is actually driven by the perception of continuous visual parameters, such as size, as critics of the number sense theory suggest, then individual differences in both metrics (adaptation and discrimination) should be correlated across individuals.…”

Section: Challenge 1: Number Sense No Such Thingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reproduced with permission from DeWind et al 84 adaptation and discrimination thresholds for two sensory parameters, size and numerosity. 86 They posit that if numerosity discrimination is actually driven by the perception of continuous visual parameters, such as size, as critics of the number sense theory suggest, then individual differences in both metrics (adaptation and discrimination) should be correlated across individuals. In other words, if the underlying cognitive mechanism for perceiving size and numerosity is shared, individual differences should be correlated.…”

Section: (A and B) Stimuli (Black Dots) Used In Their Experiments Plotmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the neurobiological link between number sense and symbolic numerical abilities

Wilkey

Ansari

2019

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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A significant body of research links individual differences in symbolic numerical abilities, such as arithmetic, to number sense, the neurobiological system used to approximate and manipulate quantities without language or symbols. However, recent findings from cognitive neuroscience challenge this influential theory. Our current review presents an overview of evidence for the number sense account of symbolic numerical abilities and then reviews recent studies that challenge this account, organized around the following four assertions. (1) There is no number sense as traditionally conceived. (2) Neural substrates of number sense are more widely distributed than common consensus asserts, complicating the neurobiological evidence linking number sense to numerical abilities. (3) The most common measures of number sense are confounded by other cognitive demands, which drive key correlations. (4) Number sense and symbolic number systems (Arabic digits, number words, and so on) rely on distinct neural mechanisms and follow independent developmental trajectories. The review follows each assertion with comments on future directions that may bring resolution to these issues.

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Independent adaptation mechanisms for numerosity and size perception provide evidence against a common sense of magnitude

Cited by 23 publications

References 63 publications

Adaptation to variance generalizes across visual domains.

Adaptation to variance generalizes across visual domains.

Application of an abstract concept across magnitude dimensions by fish

Challenging the neurobiological link between number sense and symbolic numerical abilities

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