Abstract
BackgroundRecent research indicates that processing proportion magnitude is associated with activation in the intraparietal sulcus. Thus, brain areas associated with the processing of numbers (i.e., absolute magnitude) were activated during processing symbolic fractions as well as non-symbolic proportions. Here, we investigated systematically the cognitive processing of symbolic (e.g., fractions and decimals) and non-symbolic proportions (e.g., dot patterns and pie charts) in a two-stage procedure. First, we investigated relative magnitude-related activations of proportion processing. Second, we evaluated whether symbolic and non-symbolic proportions share common neural substrates.MethodsWe conducted an fMRI study using magnitude comparison tasks with symbolic and non-symbolic proportions, respectively. As an indicator for magnitude-related processing of proportions, the distance effect was evaluated.ResultsA conjunction analysis indicated joint activation of specific occipito-parietal areas including right intraparietal sulcus (IPS) during proportion magnitude processing. More specifically, results indicate that the IPS, which is commonly associated with absolute magnitude processing, is involved in processing relative magnitude information as well, irrespective of symbolic or non-symbolic presentation format. However, we also found distinct activation patterns for the magnitude processing of the different presentation formats.ConclusionOur findings suggest that processing for the separate presentation formats is not only associated with magnitude manipulations in the IPS, but also increasing demands on executive functions and strategy use associated with frontal brain regions as well as visual attention and encoding in occipital regions. Thus, the magnitude processing of proportions may not exclusively reflect processing of number magnitude information but also rather domain-general processes.
Highlights
Recent research indicates that processing proportion magnitude is associated with activation in the intraparietal sulcus
Activation inparietal cortex Bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS) was repeatedly reported active for processing absolute magnitude [9, 10, 16, 37]. In line with this idea, we found that magnitude processing of decimals was associated with activation in the bilateral IPS, most probably reflecting the processing of number magnitude information [8, 61, 64]
Previous studies suggested that fractions are represented holistically in the human brain [41], our results suggest that access to the magnitude information of a fraction seems to involve additional computational steps as reflected by activation of frontal working memory and cognitive control areas rather than a simple symbol-to-referent mapping
Summary
Recent research indicates that processing proportion magnitude is associated with activation in the intraparietal sulcus. Brain areas associated with the processing of numbers (i.e., absolute magnitude) were activated during processing symbolic fractions as well as non-symbolic proportions. Ratios, and proportions are among the most ubiquitous forms of numerical information encountered in everyday life. They are one of the most difficult concepts to learn and even adults frequently fail to process them correctly [1, 2]. The present study aims at exploring why these pedagogic approaches might be successful from a neurocognitive perspective To this end, we aimed at broadening the understanding of mechanisms underlying proportion processing by investigating the neural correlates of processing symbolic fractions and non-symbolic proportions in the human brain. A shared neural correlate for the magnitude processing of fractions and proportions, independent of
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