Universalities and cultural specificities of finger counting and montring: evidence from Amazon Tsimane’ people

Despite variety of cultures, our shared biology and the universality of finger counting suggests that numbers are embodied. Another lines of research show that numerical cognition might be bound to what our bodies are able to do. Differences in finger counting are apparent even within Western cultures. Relatively few indigenous cultures have been systematically analyzed in terms of traditional finger counting and montring (i.e., communicating numbers with fingers) routines. Even fewer studies used the same protocols across cultures, allowing for a systematic comparison of indigenous and Western finger counting routines. We analyze the finger counting and montring routines of Tsimane’ (N = 121), an indiginous people living in the Bolivian Amazon rainforest, depending on handedness, education level, and exposure to mainstream, industrialised Bolivian culture. Tsimane' routines are compared with those of German and British participants. Tsimane’ reveal a greater variation in finger counting and montring routines, which seems to be modified by their education level. We outline a framework on how different factors might affect cross-cultural and within-cultural variation in finger counting.

Numerical cognition needs more and better distinctions, not fewer

We agree that the ANS truly represents number. We endorse the authors’ conclusions on the arguments from confounds, congruency, and imprecision, though we disagree with many claims along the way. Here we discuss some complications with the meanings that undergird theories in numerical cognition, and with the language we use to communicate those theories.

Does quantity matter to a stingless bee?

Quantitative information is omnipresent in the world and a wide range of species has been shown to use quantities to optimize their decisions. While most studies have focused on vertebrates, a growing body of research demonstrates that also insects such as honeybees possess basic quantitative abilities that might aid them in finding profitable flower patches. However, it remains unclear if for insects, quantity is a salient feature relative to other stimulus dimensions, or if it is only used as a “last resort” strategy in case other stimulus dimensions are inconclusive. Here, we tested the stingless bee Trigona fuscipennis, a species representative of a vastly understudied group of tropical pollinators, in a quantity discrimination task. In four experiments, we trained wild, free-flying bees on stimuli that depicted either one or four elements. Subsequently, bees were confronted with a choice between stimuli that matched the training stimulus either in terms of quantity or another stimulus dimension. We found that bees were able to discriminate between the two quantities, but performance differed depending on which quantity was rewarded. Furthermore, quantity was more salient than was shape. However, quantity did not measurably influence the bees' decisions when contrasted with color or surface area. Our results demonstrate that just as honeybees, small-brained stingless bees also possess basic quantitative abilities. Moreover, invertebrate pollinators seem to utilize quantity not only as "last resort" but as a salient stimulus dimension. Our study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on quantitative cognition in invertebrate species and adds to our understanding of the evolution of numerical cognition.

Number to me, space to you: Joint representation of spatial-numerical associations

Recent work has shown that number concepts activate both spatial and magnitude representations. According to the social co-representation literature which has shown that participants typically represent task components assigned to others together with their own, we asked whether explicit magnitude meaning and explicit spatial coding must be present in a single mind, or can be distributed across two minds, to generate a spatial-numerical congruency effect. In a shared go/no-go task that eliminated peripheral spatial codes, we assigned explicit magnitude processing to participants and spatial processing to either human or non-human co-agents. The spatial-numerical congruency effect emerged only with human co-agents. We demonstrate an inter-personal level of conceptual congruency between space and number that arises from a shared conceptual representation not contaminated by peripheral spatial codes. Theoretical implications of this finding for numerical cognition are discussed.

Influences of hand action on the processing of symbolic numbers: a special role of pointing?

Embodied and grounded cognition theories suggest that cognitive processes are built upon sensorimotor systems. In the context of studies on numerical cognition, interactions between number processing and the hand actions of reaching and grasping have been documented in skilled adults, thereby supporting embodied and grounded cognition accounts. The present study made use of the neurophysiological principle of neural adaptation applied to repetitive hand actions to test the hypothesis of a functional overlap between neurocognitive mechanisms of hand action and number processing. Participants performed repetitive grasping of an object, repetitive pointing, repetitive tapping, or passive viewing. Subsequently, they performed a symbolic number comparison task. Importantly, hand action and number comparison were functionally and temporally dissociated, thereby minimizing context-based effects. Results showed that executing the action of pointing slowed down the responses in number comparison. Moreover, the typical distance effect (faster responses for numbers far from the reference as compared to close ones) was not observed for small numbers after pointing, while it was enhanced by grasping. These findings confirm the functional link between hand action and number processing, and suggest new hypotheses on the role of pointing as a meaningful gesture in the development and embodiment of numerical skills.

The role of materiality in numerical cognition

Numerical elaboration and the extension of numbers to non-tangible domains such as time have been linked to cultural complexity in several studies. However, the reasons for this phenomenon remain insufficiently explored. In the present analysis, Material Engagement Theory, an emerging perspective in cognitive archaeology, provides a new perspective from which to reinterpret the cultural nexus in which quantification develops. These insights are then applied to representative Neolithic, Upper Palaeolithic, and Middle Stone Age artifacts used for quantification: clay tokens from Neolithic Mesopotamia, notched tallies from the European Upper Palaeolithic, hand stencils with possible finger-counting patterns as documented at Cosquer and Gargas, and stringed beads from Blombos Cave in South Africa.

The Cultural Challenge in Mathematical Cognition

In their recent paper on “Challenges in mathematical cognition”, Alcock and colleagues (Alcock et al. [2016]. Challenges in mathematical cognition: A collaboratively-derived research agenda. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 2, 20-41) defined a research agenda through 26 specific research questions. An important dimension of mathematical cognition almost completely absent from their discussion is the cultural constitution of mathematical cognition. Spanning work from a broad range of disciplines – including anthropology, archaeology, cognitive science, history of science, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology – we argue that for any research agenda on mathematical cognition the cultural dimension is indispensable, and we propose a set of exemplary research questions related to it.

On the Nature of Numerosity and the Role of Language in Developing Number Concepts: A Reply to Everett

We respond to Caleb Everett’s (2013) critique of our 2012 Current Anthropology article “Numerosity, Abstraction, and the Emergence of Symbolic Thinking.” We refute Everett’s criticisms, including his claim that we overemphasized paleoanthropological evidence in our argument, noting that recent experimental research in numerical cognition comprised 60% of our references. We also identify two key misunderstandings by Everett, first, the idea that numerosity is not uniform in extant Homo sapiens (we believe that experimental findings, including those of Everett himself, demonstrate that quantity perception is cross-culturally uniform) and second, the idea that language necessarily shapes human numerosity (in fact, the two are largely independent cognitive processes, and the evidence shows that numerosity, as a perceptual primitive, precedes language, not the other way around as argued by Everett). We note our focus on the fundamental question of how discrete quantities emerge out of the undifferentiated ‘many’, given numerosity, and reiterate our 2012 suggestion that the answer lies in the interaction of quantity appreciation with material scaffolds.