title: Small on the left, large on the right: numbers orient visual attention onto space in preverbal infants.
abstract: Numbers are represented as ordered magnitudes along a spatially oriented number line. While culture and formal education modulate the direction of this number-space mapping, it is a matter of debate whether its emergence is entirely driven by cultural experience. By registering 8-9-month-old infants' eye movements, this study shows that numerical cues are critical in orienting infants' visual attention towards a peripheral region of space that is congruent with the number's relative position on a left-to-right oriented representational continuum. This finding provides the first direct evidence that, in humans, the association between numbers and oriented spatial codes occurs before the acquisition of symbols or exposure to formal education, suggesting that the number line is not merely a product of human invention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy.|Milan Center for Neuroscience (NeuroMI), Italy.
authors.forename: Hermann
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bulf
authors.affiliation: Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France.|CNRS UMR 8242, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Paris, France.|INSERM, U992, Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
authors.forename: Maria Dolores
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: de Hevia
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy.|Milan Center for Neuroscience (NeuroMI), Italy.
authors.forename: Viola
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Macchi Cassia
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008433:Mathematics; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011897:Random Allocation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*