Number symbols in the brain and mind

数字在日常生活中起着至关重要的作用。从平衡公司预算到在季后赛中查看记分牌，数字不断地影响着我们的决策和行为。在文化历史的进程中，人类发明了各种各样的符号形式来表示数字，从史前的洞穴标记到罗马数字。今天，阿拉伯数字是最普遍的符号数字表示形式。在学习和发展的过程中，每个孩子都必须构建神经表征来支持对阿拉伯数字的流畅处理。******我的nserc资助的研究项目的中心重点是更好地理解我们的大脑是如何在学习和发展的过程中处理数字符号的，比如阿拉伯数字。在过去的5年里，我和我的研究团队一直专注于更好地理解阿拉伯数字如何成为数量的指涉（例如，孩子们如何学习符号“5”是所有5个物体的代表）。然而，阿拉伯数字除了表示数量之外，还传达了序数信息（例如，5在6之前，但在4之后）。此外，阿拉伯数字是形成视觉类别的形状，因此可能与其他视觉类别（如字母和面孔）的处理方式不同。目前对阿拉伯数字的序数和视觉处理所知甚少。******在接下来的5年里，我们将通过扩展我们的研究项目来扩展我们对符号数处理的神经认知基础的理解，而不仅仅是研究符号作为数量的指涉物。具体来说，在提议的项目流A中，我们将研究大脑如何表示数字顺序，以及它与阿拉伯数字作为数量参考的神经处理的相似和不同之处。此外，我们将研究数字顺序的大脑表征在发展过程中是如何变化的。项目流B的目的是研究腹侧视觉皮层中支持阿拉伯数字视觉表征的数字形式区域（NFA）的存在。为此，我们将对儿童和成人进行研究，以更好地理解：a)在大脑的视觉区域中是否存在特定类别的阿拉伯数字表征；b)作为发展和经验的功能，这样的大脑区域是如何变得专业化的。******总之，这些项目将大大加深我们对人类大脑如何在学习和发展过程中处理阿拉伯数字的多个指示物的理解。拟议的研究将使我们的理解超越仅仅研究阿拉伯数字作为数量的表示，从而更丰富地理解大脑回路是如何专门处理阿拉伯数字所传达的有序信息的，以及这些符号是如何在大脑中进行视觉处理的。

Numbers play a critical role in many everyday life situations. From balancing the company budget to checking the scoreboard during a playoff game, numbers are constantly informing our decisions and behaviours. Over the course of cultural history, humans have invented various symbolic forms to represent numbers, ranging from prehistoric cave markings to Roman numerals. Today, Arabic numerals are the most pervasive form of symbolic number representations. Over the course of learning and development, every child has to construct neural representations to support the fluent processing of Arabic numerals. ******The central focus of my NSERC-funded research program is to better understand how our brains come to process numerical symbols, such as Arabic numerals, over the course of learning and development. Over the past 5 years my research team and I have focussed on better understanding how Arabic numerals become referents for quantity (e.g. how children learn that the symbol ‘5' is a representation for all sets of five objects). However, in addition to being representations of quantity, Arabic numerals convey ordinal information (e.g. 5 comes before 6 but after 4). Furthermore, Arabic numerals are shapes that form a visual category and may, therefore, be processed differently from other visual categories such as letters and faces. Presently very little is known about the ordinal and visual processing of Arabic numerals. ******In the next 5 years we will extend our understanding of the neurocognitive basis of symbolic number processing by expanding our research program beyond the study of symbols as referents for quantity. Specifically, in the proposed Project Stream A, we will investigate how the brain represents numerical order and how it is both similar to and different from neural processing of Arabic numerals as referents for quantity. Furthermore, we will study how brain representations of numerical order change over the course of development. The aim of Project Stream B is to investigate the existence of a Number Form Area (NFA) in the ventral visual cortex that underpins the visual representation of Arabic Numerals. To do so, we will study both children and adults in an effort to better understand a.) whether there exists a category-specific representation of Arabic numerals in visual areas of the brain and b.) how such a brain region becomes specialized as a function of development and experience. ******Together, these projects will significantly further our understanding of how the human brain come to process multiple referents of Arabic numerals over the course of learning and development. The proposed studies will move our understanding beyond solely studying Arabic numerals as representations of quantity towards a richer understanding of how brain circuits are specialized for the processing of the ordinal information conveyed by Arabic numerals as well as how these symbols are processed visually in the brain.