Neural correlates of the number???size interference task in children

Abstract

In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, 17 children were asked to make numerical and physical magnitude classifications while ignoring the other stimulus dimension (number-size interference task). Digit pairs were either incongruent (3 8) or neutral (3 8). Generally, numerical magnitude interferes with font size (congruity effect). Moreover, relative to numerically adjacent digits far ones yield quicker responses (distance effect). Behaviourally, robust distance and congruity effects were observed in both tasks. Imaging baseline contrasts revealed activations in frontal, parietal, occipital and cerebellar areas bilaterally. Different from results usually reported for adults, smaller distances activated frontal, but not (intra-)parietal areas in children. Congruity effects became significant only in physical comparisons. Thus, even with comparable behavioural performance, cerebral activation patterns may differ substantially between children and adults.

Neuronal population coding of continuous and discrete quantity in the primate posterior parietal cortex

“…In addition, functional imaging studies in humans show that the frontal lobe represents aspects of nonverbal quantity representations even in the absence of task demands (37). Interestingly, quantity activation in the frontal lobe is particularly prominent in children (38,39). Future single-cell studies are needed to clarify whether complex quantity judgements require an interplay with, or readout by, more executive structures, such as the prefrontal cortex (36).…”

Common and distinct brain regions in both parietal and frontal cortex support symbolic and nonsymbolic number processing in humans: A functional neuroimaging meta-analysis

“…Similarly, pediatric neuroimaging studies showed that young children recruited the prefrontal cortex more than adults during number discrimination tasks. In contrast, intraparietal sulcus activation during number comparison increased across development Kaufmann et al, 2006). Researchers suggested that this frontal to parietal shift from childhood to adulthood may reflect a decrease in the need for domain general cognitive resources such as working memory and attention as children begin to process number symbols automatically (Cantlon et al, 2009a(Cantlon et al, , 2006Venkatraman et al, 2005).…”

“…The frontal cortex has been identified as important for number processing in single-cell recordings from neurons in non-human primates (Andreas Nieder et al, 2002). Additionally, developmental imaging studies have documented that brain activation during numerical processing shifts from the frontal cortex to the parietal cortex across development Cantlon et al, 2006;Kaufmann et al, 2006). A quantitative meta-analysis that synthesized studies examining brain regions that are correlated with basic number processing and calculation tasks in adults further supported the idea that the frontal cortex is important for number processing in adults (Arsalidou and Taylor, 2011).…”

Effects of symbol type and numerical distance on the human event-related potential

“…One possible explanation was that the proposed models of number processing did not lead us to anticipate any valuable difference at anterior sites. Nevertheless, a number of studies have already suggested that the involvement of the prefrontal regions in number comparison (Ansari, Garcia, Lucas, Hamon, & Dhital, 2005;Kaufmann et al, 2006;Pinel et al, 2001). More importantly, earlier ERP studies of face processing showed a large and consistent positive wave between 140 and 200 ms over frontal midline sites.…”