Number symbols in the brain and mind

大脑和心灵中的数字符号

• 批准号: RGPIN-2017-04644
• 负责人: Ansari, Daniel
• 金额: $ 4.23万
• 依托单位: University of Western Ontario
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=711092
• 关键词: Number; symbols; brain; mind

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.

数字在许多日常生活中扮演着至关重要的角色。从平衡公司预算到在季后赛期间查看记分牌，数字一直在告知我们的决策和行为。在文化史的进程中，人类发明了各种符号形式来表示数字，从史前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流利的阿拉伯数字处理。 我的NSERC资助的研究项目的中心重点是更好地了解我们的大脑在学习和发展过程中如何处理数字符号，如阿拉伯数字。在过去的5年里，我和我的研究团队专注于更好地理解阿拉伯数字如何成为数量的指称(例如，儿童如何学习符号5‘是所有五组物体的表示)。然而，除了数量的表示外，阿拉伯数字还传达序号信息(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，因此可以不同于其他视觉类别(如字母和面孔)进行处理。目前，人们对阿拉伯数字的顺序和视觉加工知之甚少。 在接下来的5年里，我们将通过扩展我们的研究项目，使我们对符号数字处理的神经认知基础的理解超越了将符号作为数量的参照物的研究。具体地说，在拟议的项目流A中，我们将研究大脑如何代表数字顺序，以及它与作为数量参照物的阿拉伯数字的神经加工有何相似和不同之处。此外，我们将研究大脑对数字顺序的表征在发展过程中是如何变化的。项目流B的目的是调查腹侧视觉皮质中数字形式区域(NFA)的存在，该区域支撑着阿拉伯数字的视觉表征。为此，我们将对儿童和成人进行研究，以努力更好地理解。)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。这样的大脑区域是如何随着发展和经验而变得专业化的。 总而言之，这些项目将大大加深我们对人脑如何在学习和发展过程中处理阿拉伯数字的多个指代的理解。拟议的研究将使我们的理解从单纯研究阿拉伯数字作为量的表示，转向更丰富的理解，即大脑回路是如何专门处理由阿拉伯数字传达的顺序信息的，以及这些符号是如何在大脑中进行视觉处理的。