ArticleNature human behaviour2023
Distinct neuronal representation of small and large numbers in the human medial temporal lobe.
Article in Nature human behaviour, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Quantity Estimation by Repeated Comparative Judgments.Cognitive science · 2026Article
- Fast efficient coding and sensory adaptation in gain-adaptive recurrent networks.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Sensorimotor transformation of number in the primate parietal cortex.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Switching on the behavioral and neural rhythmicity to retrieve memories when the number of retained items exceeds four.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Shared cognitive biases influence numerical judgments in macaques and crows.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Disentangling temporal integration and segregation in multiple object individuation.Journal of vision · 2025Article
- Distinct neural representational geometries of numerosity in early visual and association regions across visual streams.Communications biology · 2025Article
- The development of numerical mapping in preschool children.PloS one · 2025Article
- Coding number estimates.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Convergent Circuit Computation for Categorization in the Brains of Primates and Songbirds.Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Whether small numerical quantities are represented by a special subitizing system that is distinct from a large-number estimation system has been debated for over a century. Here we show that two separate neural mechanisms underlie the representation of small and large numbers. We performed single neuron recordings in the medial temporal lobe of neurosurgical patients judging numbers. We found a boundary in neuronal coding around number 4 that correlates with the behavioural transition from subitizing to estimation. In the subitizing range, neurons showed superior tuning selectivity accompanied by suppression effects suggestive of surround inhibition as a selectivity-increasing mechanism. In contrast, tuning selectivity decreased with increasing numbers beyond 4, characterizing a ratio-dependent number estimation system. The two systems with the coding boundary separating them were also indicated using decoding and clustering analyses. The identified small-number subitizing system could be linked to attention and working memory that show comparable capacity limitations.
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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.