Is it only humans that count from left to right?

Rugani, Rosa; Kelly, Debbie M.; Szelest, Izabela; Regolin, Lucia; Vallortígara, Giorgio

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2009.0960

Cited by 136 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Although it is less commonly discussed in the scientific literature, other research studies have shown quite clearly that processing ordinal information may be considered a core cognitive ability (just like the core quantity system) (e.g., [17,27,37,61,62]). …”

Section: Ordinality and Quantitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Processing Ordinality and Quantity: The Case of Developmental Dyscalculia

Rubinsten¹

2011

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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In contrast to quantity processing, up to date, the nature of ordinality has received little attention from researchers despite the fact that both quantity and ordinality are embodied in numerical information. Here we ask if there are two separate core systems that lie at the foundations of numerical cognition: (1) the traditionally and well accepted numerical magnitude system but also (2) core system for representing ordinal information. We report two novel experiments of ordinal processing that explored the relation between ordinal and numerical information processing in typically developing adults and adults with developmental dyscalculia (DD). Participants made ''ordered'' or ''non-ordered'' judgments about 3 groups of dots (non-symbolic numerical stimuli; in Experiment 1) and 3 numbers (symbolic task: Experiment 2). In contrast to previous findings and arguments about quantity deficit in DD participants, when quantity and ordinality are dissociated (as in the current tasks), DD participants exhibited a normal ratio effect in the non-symbolic ordinal task. They did not show, however, the ordinality effect. Ordinality effect in DD appeared only when area and density were randomized, but only in the descending direction. In the symbolic task, the ordinality effect was modulated by ratio and direction in both groups. These findings suggest that there might be two separate cognitive representations of ordinal and quantity information and that linguistic knowledge may facilitate estimation of ordinal information.Citation: Rubinsten O, Sury D (2011) Processing Ordinality and Quantity: The Case of Developmental Dyscalculia. PLoS ONE 6(9): e24079.

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Section: Ordinality and Quantitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Processing Ordinality and Quantity: The Case of Developmental Dyscalculia

Rubinsten¹

2011

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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“…Although this inherited preference hypothesis provides no account for the culture-specific directionality of SNARC it is consistent with evidence for spatial-numerical mapping preferences in other species, as would be expected from an evolutionary account (cf. Adachi, 2014;Drucker & Brannon, 2014;Gulledge, 2006;Rugani, Kelly, Szelest, Regolin, & Vallortigara, 2010;Rugani, Vallortigara, Vallini, & Regolin, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of spatial preferences for counting and picture naming

Knudsen

Fischer

Aschersleben

2014

Psychological Research

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The direction of object enumeration reflects children's enculturation but previous work on the development of such spatial preferences has been inconsistent. Therefore, we documented directional preferences in finger counting, object counting, and picture naming for children (4 groups from 3 to 6 years, N = 104) and adults (N = 56). We found a right-side preference for finger counting in 3-to 6-year-olds and a left-side preference for counting objects and naming pictures by 6 years of age. Children were consistent in their special preferences when comparing object counting and picture naming, but not in other task pairings. Finally, spatial preferences were not related to cardinality comprehension. These results, together with other recent work, suggest a gradual development of spatial-numerical associations from early non-directional mappings into culturally constrained directional mappings.

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“…Modern cognitive science provides methods to test these ideas experimentally. We now know that human newborns, and even inexperienced animals such as newly hatched chicks, are able to discriminate objects on the basis of numerosity a few hours after the start of postnatal experience (8,9). When human newborns are presented with auditory sequences of syllables and visual arrays of objects, they look longer at the arrays that correspond to the auditory sequences in number than at arrays differing in number by a 1:3 ratio (8,10).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Representations of space, time, and number in neonates

Hevia

Izard

Coubart

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

271

196

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A rich concept of magnitude-in its numerical, spatial, and temporal forms-is a central foundation of mathematics, science, and technology, but the origins and developmental relations among the abstract concepts of number, space, and time are debated. Are the representations of these dimensions and their links tuned by extensive experience, or are they readily available from birth? Here, we show that, at the beginning of postnatal life, 0-to 3-dold neonates reacted to a simultaneous increase (or decrease) in spatial extent and in duration or numerical quantity, but they did not react when the magnitudes varied in opposite directions. The findings provide evidence that representations of space, time, and number are systematically interrelated at the start of postnatal life, before acquisition of language and cultural metaphors, and before extensive experience with the natural correlations between these dimensions.T he origins of the abstract concepts of space, time, and number are longstanding topics of study, from the dawn of philosophy (1) and experimental psychology (2) to classical developmental psychology (3) and modern cognitive science (4-6). Kant (7) argued that representations of number, space, and time provide "a priori" intuitions and concepts that precede and structure all experience. Modern cognitive science provides methods to test these ideas experimentally. We now know that human newborns, and even inexperienced animals such as newly hatched chicks, are able to discriminate objects on the basis of numerosity a few hours after the start of postnatal experience (8, 9). When human newborns are presented with auditory sequences of syllables and visual arrays of objects, they look longer at the arrays that correspond to the auditory sequences in number than at arrays differing in number by a 1:3 ratio (8, 10). At birth, humans thus possess representations of approximate numerosity that are abstract enough to enable a generalization across stimuli as varied as sequences of syllables and sets of visual objects. Are newborn human infants able to perform further, yet more abstract, generalizations across different types of magnitudes?Humans draw links between the dimensions of space, time and number, as shown by the presence of "number lines" (11, 12) and the use of spatial language to refer to time (13). Human adults link these dimensions automatically. When processing spatial and temporal, or spatial and numerical information simultaneously, representations of time and number are both affected by the spatial dimension (14, 15). The propensity to represent numerical magnitudes by the lengths of line segments (number lines) is a widespread phenomenon not only across cultures and species but also over human development. Human infants (16, 17), children (18, 19), educated human adults (18,20), and uneducated adults living in remote cultures (11) map numbers onto corresponding line lengths. Similarly, spatial-temporal mappings show the universal effects of one of these dimensions on the other, both in human a...

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Is it only humans that count from left to right?

Cited by 136 publications

References 9 publications

Processing Ordinality and Quantity: The Case of Developmental Dyscalculia

Processing Ordinality and Quantity: The Case of Developmental Dyscalculia

Development of spatial preferences for counting and picture naming

Representations of space, time, and number in neonates

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