ArticleCognition2025
The compositional nature of number concepts: Insights from number frequencies.
Article in Cognition, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 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.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dissociation of Size and Distance Effect in Numerical Magnitude Comparison in Less Familiar Number Ranges.Journal of cognition · 2026Article
- When Numbers Whisper Their Names - Number Word Processing in Multi-Digit Number Magnitude Comparison in French Speakers.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2026Article
- Decimal systems around the world.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Origins of numbers: a shared language-of-thought for arithmetic and geometry?Trends in cognitive sciences · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The frequency with which humans use words provides a window into the psychological representation of the corresponding concepts. Capitalizing on the availability of massive lexical databases, we evaluate the frequency with which specific number words and their combinations (e.g. "twenty-four", "quatre-vingt-douze") are used in six different languages. We use these data to probe the hypothesis that complex concepts arise as syntactic combinations of simpler ones in a language of thought. First, we confirm our previous report of a regular and reproducible profile of decrease in frequency with number size, with local peaks for round numbers. Second, we show that frequency varies with the simplicity of the decomposition of a number into small prime factors. Third, we demonstrate that the entire frequency profile, including its overall decrease and local peaks, can be modeled by a grammar of algebraic combinations, whereby each number arises from addition and multiplication operations on smaller numbers. Those findings strengthen the hypothesis that compositionality in a language of thought underlies the emergence of exact number concepts.
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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.