Log or linear? Distinct intuitions of the number scale in western and amazonian indigene cultures
Log or linear? Distinct intuitions of the number scale in western and amazonian indigene cultures
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DOI：
10.1126/science.1156540
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发表时间：
2008-05-30
期刊：
影响因子：
56.9
通讯作者：
Pica, Pierre
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dehaene, Stanislas;Izard, Veronique;Pica, Pierre
数字到空间的映射是测量和数学的基础。这种映射是一种文化发明，还是所有人类（无论文化和教育如何）所共有的普遍直觉？我们探讨了Mundurucu的数空间映射，Mundurucu是一个亚马逊土著群体，他们的数字词汇量很小，几乎没有受过正规教育。在所有年龄段，蒙杜鲁库人都将符号和非符号数字映射到对数尺度上，而西方成年人则使用线性映射来处理小数字或符号数字，而当数字在不鼓励计数的条件下以非符号形式呈现时，则使用对数映射。这表明，数到空间的映射是一种普遍直觉，而这种数的初始直觉是对数的。线性数字线的概念似乎是一种文化发明，在缺乏正规教育的情况下未能发展。
The mapping of numbers onto space is fundamental to measurement and to mathematics. Is this mapping a cultural invention or a universal intuition shared by all humans regardless of culture and education? We probed number- space mappings in the Mundurucu, an Amazonian indigene group with a reduced numerical lexicon and little or no formal education. At all ages, the Mundurucu mapped symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers onto a logarithmic scale, whereas Western adults used linear mapping with small or symbolic numbers and logarithmic mapping when numbers were presented nonsymbolically under conditions that discouraged counting. This indicates that the mapping of numbers onto space is a universal intuition and that this initial intuition of number is logarithmic. The concept of a linear number line appears to be a cultural invention that fails to develop in the absence of formal education.