Sources of mathematical thinking: behavioral and brain-imaging evidence.
Does the human capacity for mathematical intuition depend on linguistic competence or on visuo-spatial representations? A series of behavioral and brain-imaging experiments provides evidence for both sources. Exact arithmetic is acquired in a language-specific format, transfers poorly to a different language or to novel facts, and recruits networks involved in word-association processes. In contrast, approximate arithmetic shows language independence, relies on a sense of numerical magnitudes, and recruits bilateral areas of the parietal lobes involved in visuo-spatial processing. Mathematical intuition may emerge from the interplay of these brain systems.
D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D019545:Intuition; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D013850:Thinking