The Neural Development of an Abstract Concept of Number

As literate adults, we appreciate numerical values as abstract entities that can be represented by a numeral, a word, a number of lines on a scorecard, or a sequence of chimes from a clock. This abstract, notation-independent appreciation of numbers develops gradually over the first several years of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of cognitive neuroscience 2009-11, Vol.21 (11), p.2217-2229
Main Authors: Cantlon, Jessica F, Libertus, Melissa E, Pinel, Philippe, Dehaene, Stanislas, Brannon, Elizabeth M, Pelphrey, Kevin A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adults
Age Factors
Brain
Brain Hemisphere Functions
Brain Mapping
Cerebral Cortex - growth & development
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Child
Child Development - physiology
Children
Children & youth
Cognitive Processes
Comparative analysis
Concept Formation - physiology
Diagnostic Tests
Female
Humans
Imagination - physiology
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Mathematical Concepts
Neural Pathways - growth & development
Neural Pathways - physiology
Neurology
NMR
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Number Concepts
Numerical analysis
Physiology
Primates
Reference Values
Task Analysis
Young Adult
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Summary:As literate adults, we appreciate numerical values as abstract entities that can be represented by a numeral, a word, a number of lines on a scorecard, or a sequence of chimes from a clock. This abstract, notation-independent appreciation of numbers develops gradually over the first several years of life. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examine the brain mechanisms that 6- and 7-year-old children and adults recruit to solve numerical comparisons across different notation systems. The data reveal that when young children compare numerical values in symbolic and nonsymbolic notations, they invoke the same network of brain regions as adults including occipito-temporal and parietal cortex. However, children also recruit inferior frontal cortex during these numerical tasks to a much greater degree than adults. Our data lend additional support to an emerging consensus from adult neuroimaging, nonhuman primate neurophysiology, and computational modeling studies that a core neural system integrates notation-independent numerical representations throughout development but, early in development, higher-order brain mechanisms mediate this process.
ISSN:0898-929X
1530-8898
DOI:10.1162/jocn.2008.21159