Abstract
Numerical processing has been demonstrated to be subserved typically by the brain regions around the bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS). The goal of the current study was to investigate whether the processing of mathematical terms shared the same brain regions with numerical processing. Healthy adult participants performed semantic distance judgment tasks on five types of materials, including geometric terms, algebraic terms, linguistic terms, words for tools and other common objects, and Arabic numbers. Brain activation was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results showed that geometric terms had greater activation than algebraic terms, linguistic terms and tool words in the horizontal IPS, but algebraic terms did not have greater activation than linguistic terms and tool words in this region. Arabic numbers showed greater activation than non-number materials (including geometric terms, algebraic terms, linguistic terms and tool words) in the bilateral IPS, right inferior frontal gyrus and bilateral middle frontal gyrus, but the non-number materials showed stronger activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus and left middle temporal gyrus. These results suggest that the brain area for the processing of numbers (the left IPS) seems to be involved in semantic processing of geometric terms, but not that of other mathematical terms such as algebraic terms. Both algebraic and geometric terms share similar brain organization with basic semantic processing in the left temporal and frontal regions.
Highlights
We found that geometric
The main findings include: (1) Algebraic terms did not elicit greater activation than did linguistic terms and tool words in the horizontal intraparietal sulcus, but geometric terms elicited greater activation than did algebraic terms, linguistic terms and tool words in this brain region; (2) Arabic numbers had significantly greater activation than other four types of materials in the bilateral IPS, the right inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral middle frontal gyrus and right middle temporal gyrus; (3) Non-numerical materials showed stronger activation than Arabic numbers in the left inferior frontal gyrus and the middle temporal gyrus; and (4)
Summary
Several lines of research have shown that numerical processing is subserved by the bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS) (e.g., Arsalidou and Taylor, 2011; Butterworth, 1999; Dehaene et al, 1999; Eger et al, 2003; Kadosh et al, 2005, 2007; Piazza et al, 2007; Thioux et al, 2005; see reviews by Brannon, 2006; Dehaene et al, 2003). Functional MRI studies have systematically shown that numerical processing elicits greater activation in the parietal lobule than does nonnumerical processing Developmental dyscalculia has been showed to be associated with structural abnormalities in the IPS regions (e.g., Isaacs et al, 2001; Kucian et al, 2006; Molko et al, 2003, 2004; Rotzer et al, 2008)
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