Abstract
Humans have a Number Sense that enables them to represent and manipulate numerical quantities. Behavioral data suggest that the acuity of numerical discrimination is predictively associated with math ability—especially in children—but some authors argued that its assessment is problematic. In the present study, we used frequency-tagged electroencephalography to objectively measure spontaneous numerical discrimination during passive viewing of dot or picture arrays in healthy adults. During 1-min sequences, we introduced periodic numerosity changes and we progressively increased the magnitude of such changes every ten seconds. We found significant brain synchronization to the periodic numerosity changes from the 1.2 ratio over medial occipital regions, and amplitude strength increased with the numerical ratio. Brain responses were reliable across both stimulus formats. Interestingly, electrophysiological responses also mirrored performances on a number comparison task and seemed to be linked to math fluency. In sum, we present a neural marker of numerical acuity that is passively evaluated in short sequences, independent of stimulus format and that reflects behavioural performances on explicit number comparison tasks.
Highlights
Property, independent from other visual p ercepts[25]
Since one of the main objectives of the current study was to determine the earliest ratio for which numerical discrimination was achieved at the brain level using both dots and pictures stimuli, we proceeded by distinguishing individuals based on whether they already featured significant cerebral responses (i.e., Z-score > 1.64) at 5 Hz on Oz at the early ratio 1.2
We were able to extract a cerebral measure of numerical discrimination using an implicit task that only involved passive viewing of numerical quantities, without requiring any explicit numerical judgements
Summary
Property, independent from other visual p ercepts[25]. This view is notably supported by deep-network modeling showing that numerosity emerges as a statistical property of pictures in hierarchical generative m odels[26]. We aimed at comparing brain responses to such numerical information in the context of either simple geometrical forms (i.e., dot arrays) or richer colourful pictures To achieve these goals, we adapted a paradigm based on the Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation (FPVS) method[30]. We recently found[42,43] that FPVS can provide a reliable electrophysiological measure of numerical discrimination independent from other visual properties (see also44,45,for a similar observation). The progressive numerical increment allowed us to determine in one sequence the first ratio at which numerical discrimination was achieved at the brain level In this respect, electrophysiological responses tagged at 5 Hz (i.e., the frequency of the alternating change) are an individual and objective neural marker of numerical discrimination. It included even more complex visual changes in that quite a few items contained varying numbers of sub-items
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