Numerical cognition is a subdiscipline of cognitive science that studies the cognitive, developmental and neural bases of numbers and mathematics. As with many cognitive science endeavors, this is a highly interdisciplinary topic, and includes researchers in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, neuroscience and cognitive linguistics. This discipline, although it may interact with questions in the philosophy of mathematics is primarily concerned with empirical questions.
Topics included in the domain of numerical cognition include:
- How do non-human animals process numerosity?
- How do infants acquire an understanding of numbers (and how much is inborn)?
- How do humans associate linguistic symbols with numerical quantities?
- How do these capacities underlie our ability to perform complex calculations?
- What are the neural bases of these abilities, both in humans and in non-humans?
- What metaphorical capacities and processes allow us to extend our numerical understanding into complex domains such as the concept of infinity, the infinitesimal or the concept of the limit in calculus?
Read more about Numerical Cognition: Comparative Studies, Developmental Studies, Neuroimaging and Neurophysiological Studies, Relations Between Number and Other Cognitive Processes, Ethnolinguistic Variance, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words numerical and/or cognition:
“There is a genius of a nation, which is not to be found in the numerical citizens, but which characterizes the society.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Socratic man believes that all virtue is cognition, and that all that is needed to do what is right is to know what is right. This does not hold for Mosaic man who is informed with the profound experience that cognition is never enough, that the deepest part of him must be seized by the teachings, that for realization to take place his elemental totality must submit to the spirit as clay to the potter.”
—Martin Buber (1878–1965)