1999/05/07 by Stanislas Dehaene, Elizabeth S. Spelke, Philippe Pinel +3 · 1 voice · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills #Mathematics Education and Teaching Techniques #Reading and Literacy Development #Renaissance Literature and Culture #Renaissance and Early Modern Studies #Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
paper · doi:10.1126/science.284.5416.970
openalex publication_date 2006/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Does the human capacity for mathematical intuition depend on linguistic competence or on visuo-spatial representations? A series of behavioral and brain-imaging experiments provides evidence for both sources. Exact arithmetic is acquired in a language-specific format, transfers poorly to a different language or to novel facts, and recruits networks involved in word-association processes. In contrast, approximate arithmetic shows language independence, relies on a sense of numerical magnitudes, and recruits bilateral areas of the parietal lobes involved in visuo-spatial processing. Mathematical intuition may emerge from the interplay of these brain systems.