The Involvement of the Inferior Parietal Cortex in the Numerical Stroop Effect and the Distance Effect in a Two-digit Number Comparison Task

The neural mechanism of number representation and processing is currently under extensive investigation. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we designed a number comparison task to examine how people represent and compare two-digit numbers in the brain, and whether they process the decade and unit digits in parallel. We manipulated the decade-unit-digit congruency and numerical distance between the pairs of numbers. We observed both Stroop-like interference and the distance effect in the participants' performance. People responded more slowly to incongruent pairs of numbers and pairs of a smaller distance. The inferior parietal cortex showed common and distinct patterns of activation for both attentional selection and number comparison processes, and its activity was modulated by the Stroop-like interference effect and the distance effect. Taken together, these results support both parallel and holistic comparison of two-digit numbers in the brain.

[1]  Vincent Walsh.  A theory of magnitude: common cortical metrics of time, space and quantity , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[2]  Jack L. Lancaster,et al.  Clustered pixels analysis for functional MRI activation studies of the human brain , 1995 .

[3]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Is numerical comparison digital? Analogical and symbolic effects in two-digit number comparison. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[4]  M. Sugishita,et al.  Isolated acalculia due to left parietal lesion. , 1994, Archives of neurology.

[5]  Stanislas Dehaene,et al.  Approximate quantities and exact number words: dissociable systems , 2003, Neuropsychologia.

[6]  A. Nieder.  Counting on neurons: the neurobiology of numerical competence , 2005, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

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

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

[9]  S. Dehaene,et al.  The mental representation of parity and number magnitude. , 1993 .

[10]  M. Walton,et al.  Action sets and decisions in the medial frontal cortex , 2004, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[11]  Philippe Pinel,et al.  Distributed and Overlapping Cerebral Representations of Number, Size, and Luminance during Comparative Judgments , 2004, Neuron.

[12]  Wim Fias,et al.  Spatial representation of numbers. , 2004 .

[13]  Stanislas Dehaene,et al.  Arithmetic and the Brain This Review Comes from a Themed Issue on Cognitive Neuroscience Edited the Intraparietal Sulcus and Number Sense Number Sense in the Animal Brain , 2022 .

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

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

[16]  Klaus Willmes,et al.  On the perceptual generality of the unit-decade compatibility effect. , 2004, Experimental psychology.

[17]  J. Marshall,et al.  Spatial cognition: evidence from visual neglect , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[18]  T. Landis,et al.  Pure Global Acalculia Following a Left Subangular Lesion , 2003, Neurocase.

[19]  M. Banich,et al.  Functional dissociation of attentional selection within PFC: response and non-response related aspects of attentional selection as ascertained by fMRI. , 2006, Cerebral cortex.

[20]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Event-related fMRI analysis of the cerebral circuit for number comparison. , 1999, Neuroreport.

[21]  M. Corbetta,et al.  Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain , 2002, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[22]  J. Mattingley,et al.  Parietal neglect and visual awareness , 1998, Nature Neuroscience.

[23]  Stanislas Dehaene,et al.  Cerebral activations during number multiplication and comparison: a PET study , 1996, Neuropsychologia.

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

[25]  G. Glover,et al.  Dissociating Prefrontal and Parietal Cortex Activation during Arithmetic Processing , 2000, NeuroImage.

[26]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Understanding dissociations in dyscalculia: a brain imaging study of the impact of number size on the cerebral networks for exact and approximate calculation. , 2000, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[27]  Avishai Henik,et al.  Are numbers special? The comparison systems of the human brain investigated by fMRI , 2005, Neuropsychologia.

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

[29]  Andreas Nieder,et al.  A parieto-frontal network for visual numerical information in the monkey. , 2004, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

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

[31]  J. Grafman,et al.  The calculating brain: an fMRI study , 2000, Neuropsychologia.

[32]  E. Warrington,et al.  Acalculia: Deficits of operational and quantity number knowledge , 2001, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

[33]  Stanislas Dehaene,et al.  Two mental calculation systems: A case study of severe acalculia with preserved approximation , 1991, Neuropsychologia.

[34]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Interactions between number and space in parietal cortex , 2005, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[35]  A. Ardila,et al.  Spatial acalculia. , 1994, The International journal of neuroscience.

[36]  A. Basso,et al.  Acalculia, Aphasia and Spatial Disorders in Left and Right Brain-Damaged Patients , 2000, Cortex.

[37]  Jamie I. D. Campbell.  Handbook of mathematical cognition , 2004 .

[38]  G. Denes,et al.  A specific deficit for numbers in a case of dense acalculia. , 1991, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[39]  Kathryn M. McMillan,et al.  A comparison of label‐based review and ALE meta‐analysis in the Stroop task , 2005, Human brain mapping.

[40]  G. Egan,et al.  The Functional Neuroanatomy of Simple Calculation and Number Repetition: A Parametric PET Activation Study , 2000, NeuroImage.

[41]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Abstract representations of numbers in the animal and human brain , 1998, Trends in Neurosciences.

[42]  A. Pouget,et al.  Relating unilateral neglect to the neural coding of space , 2000, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[43]  J. Tanji,et al.  Numerical representation for action in the parietal cortex of the monkey , 2002, Nature.

[44]  T. Simon,et al.  The foundations of numerical thinking in a brain without numbers , 1999, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

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

[46]  Leslie G. Ungerleider,et al.  Object vision and spatial vision: two cortical pathways , 1983, Trends in Neurosciences.

[47]  S. Dehaene,et al.  The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics. , 1998 .

[48]  E. Spelke,et al.  Sources of mathematical thinking: behavioral and brain-imaging evidence. , 1999, Science.

[49]  Stanislas Dehaene,et al.  Cerebral Pathways for Calculation: Double Dissociation between Rote Verbal and Quantitative Knowledge of Arithmetic , 1997, Cortex.

[50]  Brian Butterworth,et al.  Are Subitizing and Counting Implemented as Separate or Functionally Overlapping Processes? , 2002, NeuroImage.

[51]  N. Kanwisher,et al.  Numerical Magnitude in the Human Parietal Lobe Tests of Representational Generality and Domain Specificity , 2004, Neuron.

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

[53]  Avishai Henik,et al.  Can synaesthesia research inform cognitive science? , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[54]  M. Thioux,et al.  Neuroanatomical Substrates of Arabic Number Processing, Numerical Comparison, and Simple Addition: A PET Study , 2000, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[55]  E. Spelke,et al.  Language and Conceptual Development series Core systems of number , 2004 .

[56]  Arthur F. Kramer,et al.  fMRI Studies of Stroop Tasks Reveal Unique Roles of Anterior and Posterior Brain Systems in Attentional Selection , 2000, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[57]  Hongbin Wang,et al.  The Effect of External Representations on Numeric Tasks , 2005, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

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

[59]  P. Skudlarski,et al.  Quantity determination and the distance effect with letters, numbers, and shapes: a functional MR imaging study of number processing. , 2003, AJNR. American journal of neuroradiology.

[60]  M. Rushworth,et al.  The left parietal and premotor cortices: motor attention and selection , 2003, NeuroImage.

[61]  Brian Butterworth,et al.  Selective Impairment in Manipulating Arabic Numerals , 1995, Cortex.

[62]  P T Fox,et al.  A Highly Accurate Method of Localizing Regions of Neuronal Activation in the Human Brain with Positron Emission Tomography , 1989, Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism.

[63]  D. Guehl,et al.  A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of mental subtraction in human subjects , 1999, Neuroscience Letters.

[64]  N. Cohen,et al.  Attentional Control in the Aging Brain: Insights from an fMRI Study of the Stroop Task , 2002, Brain and Cognition.

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

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