Canonical representations of fingers and dots trigger an automatic activation of number semantics: an EEG study on 10-year-old children

Frequency-tagging EEG reveals the effect of attentional focus on abstract magnitude processing

While humans can readily access the common magnitude of various codes such as digits, number words, or dot sets, it remains unclear whether this process occurs automatically, or only when explicitly attending to magnitude information. We addressed this question by examining the neural distance effect, a robust marker of magnitude processing, with a frequency-tagging approach. Electrophysiological responses were recorded while participants viewed rapid sequences of a base numerosity presented at 6 Hz (e.g., "2") in randomly mixed codes: digits, number words, canonical dot, and finger configurations. A deviant numerosity either close (e.g., "3") or distant (e.g., "8") from the base was inserted every five items. Participants were instructed to focus their attention either on the magnitude number feature (from a previous study), the parity number feature, a nonnumerical color feature or no specific feature. In the four attentional conditions, we found clear discrimination responses of the deviant numerosity despite its code variation. Critically, the distance effect (larger responses when base/deviant are distant than close) was present when participants were explicitly attending to magnitude and parity, but it faded with color and simple viewing instructions. Taken together, these results suggest automatic access to an abstract number representation but highlight the role of selective attention in processing the underlying magnitude information. This study therefore provides insights into how attention can modulate the neural activity supporting abstract magnitude processing.

Mapping skills between symbols and quantities in preschoolers: The role of finger patterns

Mapping skills between different codes to represent numerical information, such as number symbols (i.e., verbal number words and written digits) and non-symbolic quantities, are important in the development of the concept of number. The aim of the current study is to investigate children's mapping skills by incorporating another numerical code that emerges at early stages in development, finger patterns. Specifically, the study investigates (i) the order in which mapping skills develop and the association with young children's understanding of cardinality; and (ii) whether finger patterns are processed similarly to symbolic codes or rather as non-symbolic quantities. Preschool children (3-year-olds, N = 113, Mage = 40.8 months, SDage = 3.6 months; 4-year-olds, N = 103, Mage = 52.9 months, SDage = 3.4 months) both cardinality knowers and subset-knowers, were presented with twelve tasks that assessed the mappings between number words, Arabic digits, finger patterns, and quantities. The results showed that children's ability to map symbolic numbers precedes the understanding that such symbols reflect quantities, and that children recognize finger patterns above their cardinality knowledge, suggesting that finger patterns are symbolic in essence. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Children are more accurate in mapping between finger patterns and symbols (number words and Arabic digits) than in mapping finger patterns and quantities, indicating that fingers are processed holistically as symbolic codes. Children can map finger patterns to symbols above their corresponding cardinality level even in subset-knowers. Finger patterns may play a role in the process by which children learn to map symbols to quantities. Fingers patterns' use in the classroom context may be an adequate instructional and diagnostic tool.

Enhancing mathematics learning through finger-counting: A study investigating tactile strategies in 2 visually impaired cases

Finger-counting plays a crucial role in grounding and establishing mathematics, one of the most abstract domains of human cognition. While the combination of visual and proprioceptive information enables the coordination of finger movements, it was recently suggested that the emergence of finger-counting primarily relies on visual cues. In this study, we aimed to directly test this assumption by examining whether explicit finger-counting training (through tactile stimulation) may assist visually impaired children in overcoming their difficulties in learning mathematics. Two visually impaired participants (2 boys of 8.5 and 7.5 years) were therefore trained to use their fingers to calculate. Their pre- and post-training performance were compared to two control groups of sighted children who underwent either the same finger counting training (8 boys, 10 girls, Mage = 5.9 years; 10 kindergarteners and eight 1st graders) or another control vocabulary training (10 boys, 8 girls, Mage = 5.9 years; 11 kindergarteners and seven 1st graders). Results demonstrated that sighted children's arithmetic performance improved much more after the finger training than after the vocabulary training. Importantly, the positive impact of the finger training was also observed in both visually impaired participants (for addition and subtraction in one child; only for addition in the other child). These results are discussed in relation to the sensory compensation hypothesis and emphasize the importance of early and appropriate instruction of finger-based representations in both sighted and visually impaired children.

Identifying conceptual neural responses to symbolic numerals

The goal of measuring conceptual processing in numerical cognition is distanced by the possibility that neural responses to symbolic numerals are influenced by physical stimulus confounds. Here, we targeted conceptual responses to parity (even versus odd), using electroencephalogram (EEG) frequency-tagging with a symmetry/asymmetry design. Arabic numerals (2-9) were presented at 7.5 Hz in 50 s sequences; odd and even numbers were alternated to target differential, 'asymmetry' responses to parity at 3.75 Hz (7.5 Hz/2). Parity responses were probed with four different stimulus sets, increasing in intra-numeral stimulus variability, and with two control conditions composed of non-conceptual numeral alternations. Significant asymmetry responses were found over the occipitotemporal cortex to all conditions, even for the arbitrary controls. The large physical-differences control condition elicited the largest response in the stimulus set with the lowest variability (one font). Only in the stimulus set with the highest variability (20 drawn, coloured exemplars/numeral) did the response to parity surpass both control conditions. These findings show that physical differences across small sets of Arabic numerals can strongly influence, and even account for, automatic brain responses. However, carefully designed control conditions and highly variable stimulus sets may be used towards identifying truly conceptual neural responses.

A shared numerical magnitude representation evidenced by the distance effect in frequency-tagging EEG

Humans can effortlessly abstract numerical information from various codes and contexts. However, whether the access to the underlying magnitude information relies on common or distinct brain representations remains highly debated. Here, we recorded electrophysiological responses to periodic variation of numerosity (every five items) occurring in rapid streams of numbers presented at 6 Hz in randomly varying codes—Arabic digits, number words, canonical dot patterns and finger configurations. Results demonstrated that numerical information was abstracted and generalized over the different representation codes by revealing clear discrimination responses (at 1.2 Hz) of the deviant numerosity from the base numerosity, recorded over parieto-occipital electrodes. Crucially, and supporting the claim that discrimination responses reflected magnitude processing, the presentation of a deviant numerosity distant from the base (e.g., base “2” and deviant “8”) elicited larger right-hemispheric responses than the presentation of a close deviant numerosity (e.g., base “2” and deviant “3”). This finding nicely represents the neural signature of the distance effect, an interpretation further reinforced by the clear correlation with individuals’ behavioral performance in an independent numerical comparison task. Our results therefore provide for the first time unambiguously a reliable and specific neural marker of a magnitude representation that is shared among several numerical codes.