Abstract
This article offers the first comprehensive review examining the neurocognitive bases of numerical cognition from neuroimaging, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and brain-damaged patients studies. We focused on the predictions derived from the Triple Code Model (TCM), particularly the assumption that the representation of numerical quantities rests on a single format-independent representation (i.e., the analogical code) involving both intraparietal sulci (IPS). To do so, we conducted a meta-analysis based on 28 neuroimaging, 12 TMS and 12 brain-damaged patients studies, including arithmetic and magnitude tasks in symbolic and non-symbolic formats. Our findings generally agree with the TCM predictions indicating that both IPS are engaged in all tasks. Nonetheless, the results of brain-damaged patients studies conflicted with neuroimaging and TMS studies, suggesting a right hemisphere lateralization for non-symbolic formats. Our findings also led us to discuss the involvement of brain regions other than IPS in the processing of the analogical code as well as the neural substrate of other codes underlying numerical cognition (i.e., the auditory-verbal code).
Highlights
We will focus here mainly on the two main regions of interest (IPS and Angular Gyrus (AG)) and will detail to a lesser extent cerebral areas that are secondary for numerical cognition in accordance with the Triple Code Model (TCM)
We found that LBD and RBD patients did not clearly differ in SYMBOLIC MAGNITUDE, suggesting the presence of inter-hemispheric compensation as predicted again by the TCM
We observed that RBD patients met more difficulties than LBD patients in NON-SYMBOLIC MAGNITUDE
Summary
Honeybees can count the number of flower petals up to three (Gross et al, 2009; see Dacke and Srinivasan, 2008; Skorupski et al, 2017) These observations are consistent with the theory of an innate number sense (Dehaene, 1997). According to this theory, even if the processing of symbolic numbers is proper to human beings – because of its language dependence –, many animals, including humans, possess an innate number sense, allowing them to represent and to compare quantities. This innate number sense is critical to process any quantity whatever the format (symbolic and non-symbolic) In humans, both intraparietal sulci (IPS; see Appendix for abbreviations of cerebral areas) might play a key role in the coding of this format-independent representation. No comprehensive review has been carried out to test its main predictions based on data from neuroimaging, TMS
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