title: The Power of 2: How an Apparently Irregular Numeration System Facilitates Mental Arithmetic.
abstract: Mangarevan traditionally contained two numeration systems: a general one, which was highly regular, decimal, and extraordinarily extensive; and a specific one, which was restricted to specific objects, based on diverging counting units, and interspersed with binary steps. While most of these characteristics are shared by numeration systems in related languages in Oceania, the binary steps are unique. To account for these characteristics, this article draws on-and tries to integrate-insights from anthropology, archeology, linguistics, psychology, and cognitive science more generally. The analysis of mental arithmetic with these systems reveals that both types of systems entailed cognitive advantages and served important functions in the cultural context of their application. How these findings speak to more general questions revolving around the theoretical models and evolutionary trajectory of numerical cognition will be discussed in the .
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bender
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen.
authors.forename: Sieghard
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Beller
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008433:Mathematics; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Anthropology; Cognitive evolution; Culture; Distributed cognition; Mental arithmetic; Numerical cognition; Representational effects; Verbal numeration systems