The Magnitude Representation of Small and Large Symbolic Numbers in the Left and Right Hemisphere: An Event-related fMRI Study

Numbers are known to be processed along the left and right intraparietal sulcus. The present study investigated hemispheric differences between the magnitude representation of small and large symbolic numbers. To this purpose, an fMRI adaptation paradigm was used, where the continuous presentation of a habituation number was interrupted by an occasional deviant number. The results presented a distance-dependent increase of activation: larger ratios of habituation and deviant number caused a larger recovery of activation. Similar activation patterns were observed for small and large symbolic numbers, which is in line with the idea of a more coarse magnitude representation for large numbers. Interestingly, this pattern of activation was only observed in the left parietal cortex, supporting the recently proposed idea of Ansari [Ansari, D. Does the parietal cortex distinguish between “10”, “Ten,” and Ten Dots? Neuron, 53, 165–167, 2007] that the left parietal cortex is specialized in the processing of encultured symbolically presented numbers.

[1]  G. Orban,et al.  Parietal Representation of Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Magnitude , 2003, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[2]  Philippe Pinel,et al.  Tuning Curves for Approximate Numerosity in the Human Intraparietal Sulcus , 2004, Neuron.

[3]  Daniel Ansari,et al.  The role of the left intraparietal sulcus in the relationship between symbolic number processing and children's arithmetic competence , 2012, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

[4]  V. Dormal,et al.  Common and Specific Contributions of the Intraparietal Sulci to Numerosity and Length Processing , 2009, NeuroImage.

[5]  Yi-Fang Hsu,et al.  The time course of symbolic number adaptation: Oscillatory EEG activity and event-related potential analysis , 2012, NeuroImage.

[6]  S. Dehaene,et al.  The priming method: imaging unconscious repetition priming reveals an abstract representation of number in the parietal lobes. , 2001, Cerebral cortex.

[7]  Wim Fias,et al.  Priming reveals differential coding of symbolic and non-symbolic quantities , 2007, Cognition.

[8]  Stephan E. Vogel,et al.  Neurokognitive Grundlagen der typischen und atypischen Zahlenverarbeitung , 2012 .

[9]  Bert Reynvoet,et al.  Different magnitude representations in left and right hemisphere: Evidence from the visual half field technique , 2009, Laterality.

[10]  K. Grill-Spector.  3.12 – Visual Priming , 2008 .

[11]  Numerical Representation in the Parietal Lobes : , 2009 .

[12]  S. Dehaene,et al.  A Magnitude Code Common to Numerosities and Number Symbols in Human Intraparietal Cortex , 2007, Neuron.

[13]  Wim Fias,et al.  Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Pathways of Number Processing , 2008 .

[14]  M. Just,et al.  Decoding the representation of numerical values from brain activation patterns , 2013, Human brain mapping.

[15]  Marinella Cappelletti,et al.  rTMS over the intraparietal sulcus disrupts numerosity processing , 2007, Experimental Brain Research.

[16]  Michaël A. Stevens,et al.  A model of exact small-number representation , 2005, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[17]  Mauro PESENTI,et al.  Neuroanatomical substrates of Arabic number processing, numerical comparison and simple addition: A PET study. , 1998, NeuroImage.

[18]  D. LeBihan,et al.  Modulation of Parietal Activation by Semantic Distance in a Number Comparison Task , 2001, NeuroImage.

[19]  Michael Andres,et al.  Hemispheric lateralization of number comparison. , 2005, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[20]  M. Brysbaert,et al.  Semantic priming in number naming , 2002, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[21]  Bert Reynvoet,et al.  The neural origin of the priming distance effect: Distance‐dependent recovery of parietal activation using symbolic magnitudes , 2009, Human brain mapping.

[22]  Orly Rubinsten,et al.  Symbolic and non symbolic numerical representation in adults with and without developmental dyscalculia , 2012, Behavioral and Brain Functions.

[23]  A. Kleinschmidt,et al.  A Supramodal Number Representation in Human Intraparietal Cortex , 2003, Neuron.

[24]  K. Grill-Spector,et al.  fMR-adaptation: a tool for studying the functional properties of human cortical neurons. , 2001, Acta psychologica.

[25]  Jean-Luc Anton,et al.  Region of interest analysis using an SPM toolbox , 2010 .

[26]  S. Dehaene,et al.  THREE PARIETAL CIRCUITS FOR NUMBER PROCESSING , 2003, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[27]  B. Mazoyer,et al.  Neural Correlates of Simple and Complex Mental Calculation , 2001, NeuroImage.

[28]  Daniel Ansari,et al.  Does the Parietal Cortex Distinguish between “10,” “Ten,” and Ten Dots? , 2007, Neuron.

[29]  Timothy Edward John Behrens,et al.  Response-Selection-Related Parietal Activation during Number Comparison , 2004, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[30]  B. Thirion,et al.  Fast reproducible identification and large-scale databasing of individual functional cognitive networks , 2007, BMC Neuroscience.

[31]  Stanislas Dehaene,et al.  Primed numbers : Exploring the modularity of numerical representations with masked and unmasked semantic priming , 1999 .

[32]  Jonas Larsson,et al.  fMRI repetition suppression: neuronal adaptation or stimulus expectation? , 2012, Cerebral cortex.

[33]  Bert Reynvoet,et al.  Abstract or not? Insights from priming , 2009 .

[34]  Avishai Henik,et al.  Notation-Dependent and -Independent Representations of Numbers in the Parietal Lobes , 2007, Neuron.

[35]  Marco Zorzi,et al.  A Computational Model of Number Comparison , 2020, Proceedings of the Twenty First Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

[36]  C. Gallistel,et al.  Preverbal and verbal counting and computation , 1992, Cognition.

[37]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Topographical Layout of Hand, Eye, Calculation, and Language-Related Areas in the Human Parietal Lobe , 2002, Neuron.

[38]  S. Dehaene.  Varieties of numerical abilities , 1992, Cognition.

[39]  Klaus Willmes,et al.  Decade breaks in the mental number line? Putting the tens and units back in different bins , 2001, Cognition.

[40]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Differential Contributions of the Left and Right Inferior Parietal Lobules to Number Processing , 1999, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[41]  Marc Brysbaert,et al.  Automatic stimulus-response associations may be semantically mediated , 2000, Psychonomic bulletin & review.