Education Enhances the Acuity of the Nonverbal Approximate Number System

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 24; no. 6; pp. 1037 - 1043
• Main Authors: Piazza, Manuela, Pica, Pierre, Izard, Véronique, Spelke, Elizabeth S., Dehaene, Stanislas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2013; Sage Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Access; Access to education; Adolescent; Adult; Adult education; Adults; Age; Age groups; Arithmetic; Biological and medical sciences; Brazil - ethnology; Child; Child development; Child, Preschool; City squares; Cognition. Intelligence; Education; Estimation; Female; Formal education; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Male; Mathematical Concepts; Mathematics; Mathematics - education; Middle Aged; Miscellaneous; Number systems; Numbers; Perception; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Research Report; Schooling; Teaching; Thinking; Variability; Visual perception; Young Adult; Brazil; cross-cultural differences; sociocultural factors; perception; mathematical ability; Social environment; Human; Crosscultural study; Estimation; Cognitive ability; Cognition; Mathematics; Sociocultural environment; Number; Numerical cognition; Education; Cultural environment; Perception; School enrollment
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1177/0956797612464057

All humans share a universal, evolutionarily ancient approximate number system (ANS) that estimates and combines the numbers of objects in sets with ratio-limited precision. Interindividual variability in the acuity of the ANS correlates with mathematical achievement, but the causes of this correlation have never been established. We acquired psychophysical measures of ANS acuity in child and adult members of an indigene group in the Amazon, the Mundurucú, who have a very restricted numerical lexicon and highly variable access to mathematics education. By comparing Mundurucú subjects with and without access to schooling, we found that education significantly enhances the acuity with which sets of concrete objects are estimated. These results indicate that culture and education have an important effect on basic number perception. We hypothesize that symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical thinking mutually enhance one another over the course of mathematics instruction.