ArticleThe Behavioral and brain sciences2021
The number sense represents (rational) numbers.
Article in The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Neural networks underlying magnitude perception: a specific meta-analysis of fMRI studies.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Pooled it
- Part-whole effects in visual number estimation.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2026Article
- Can Mimosa pudica Plants Enumerate Light Exposure Events?Cognitive science · 2025Article
- The "Crowd Size Illusion" and the Relativity of Number Perception.Cognitive science · 2025Article
- Are three zebras more than three frogs: examining conceptual and physical congruency in numerosity judgements of familiar objects.Psychological research · 2024Article
- Article
- Understanding the complexities of mathematical cognition: A multi-level framework.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2023Article
- Electrophysiological Comparison of Cumulative Area and Non-Symbolic Number Judgments.Brain sciences · 2023Article
- The role of spatial information in an approximate cross-modal number matching task.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2023Article
- Abstract concepts: external influences, internal constraints, and methodological issues.Psychological research · 2022Review
- Symbolic number comparison and number priming do not rely on the same mechanism.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2022Article
- Number sense: the mediating effect between nonverbal intelligence and children's mathematical performance.Psicologia, reflexao e critica : revista semestral do Departamento de Psicologia da UFRGS · 2022Article
- Environmental influences on mathematics performance in early childhood.Nature reviews psychology · 2022Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
On a now orthodox view, humans and many other animals possess a "number sense," or approximate number system (ANS), that represents number. Recently, this orthodox view has been subject to numerous critiques that question whether the ANS genuinely represents number. We distinguish three lines of critique - the arguments from congruency, confounds, and imprecision - and show that none succeed. We then provide positive reasons to think that the ANS genuinely represents numbers, and not just non-numerical confounds or exotic substitutes for number, such as "numerosities" or "quanticals," as critics propose. In so doing, we raise a neglected question: numbers of what kind? Proponents of the orthodox view have been remarkably coy on this issue. But this is unsatisfactory since the predictions of the orthodox view, including the situations in which the ANS is expected to succeed or fail, turn on the kind(s) of number being represented. In response, we propose that the ANS represents not only natural numbers (e.g., 7), but also non-natural rational numbers (e.g., 3.5). It does not represent irrational numbers (e.g., √2), however, and thereby fails to represent the real numbers more generally. This distances our proposal from existing conjectures, refines our understanding of the ANS, and paves the way for future research.
Indexed as
Identifiers
33843510What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.