Babies get numbers
17 February 2006
by Richard
Conan-Davies
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Babies have an abstract numerical sense according to Cognitive neuroscientists at Duke University. Babies showed they are able to match the number of voices they hear to the number of faces they expect to see. Kerry Jordan and Elizabeth Brannon who conductede the study presented the babies with the voices of two or three women saying "look." Simultaneously, the babies could choose between looking at video images of two or three women saying the word. As they had found in previous research with monkeys, they found that the babies spent significantly more time looking at the video image that matched the number of women talking. Previous similar experiments by other researchers had not shown definitive results because of problems in their experimental design. Dr Brannon explained that "As a result of our experiments, we conclude that the babies are showing an internal representation of 'two-ness' or 'three-ness' that is separate from sensory modalities and, thus, reflects an abstract internal process," Dr Brannon further explained that "These results support the idea that there is a shared system between preverbal infants and nonverbal animals for representing numbers." |
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Original press release from Duke University
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