Attentional amplification of neural codes for number independent of other quantities along the dorsal visual stream

Castaldi, Elisa; Piazza, Manuela; Dehaene, Stanislas; Vignaud, Alexandre; Eger, Evelyn

doi:10.1101/527119

Cited by 19 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(47 reference statements)

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“…It is important to note that in a natural context, where the dimensions are not isolated as in the current experimental paradigm and, thus, strongly correlate with each other, early stage visual discrimination would likely be much stronger. Indeed, recent neuroimaging evidence supports a numerosity representation both in parietal and occipital areas, with an increasing sensitivity to numerosity along the dorsal stream especially when the numerosity is related to a task (50,51).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The neural signature of numerosity by separating numerical and continuous magnitude extraction in visual cortex with frequency-tagged EEG

Rinsveld

Guillaumé

Kohler

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The ability to handle approximate quantities, or number sense, has been recurrently linked to mathematical skills, although the nature of the mechanism allowing to extract numerical information (i.e., numerosity) from environmental stimuli is still debated. A set of objects is indeed not only characterized by its numerosity but also by other features, such as the summed area occupied by the elements, which often covary with numerosity. These intrinsic relations between numerosity and nonnumerical magnitudes led some authors to argue that numerosity is not independently processed but extracted through a weighting of continuous magnitudes. This view cannot be properly tested through classic behavioral and neuroimaging approaches due to these intrinsic correlations. The current study used a frequency-tagging EEG approach to separately measure responses to numerosity as well as to continuous magnitudes. We recorded occipital responses to numerosity, total area, and convex hull changes but not to density and dot size. We additionally applied a model predicting primary visual cortex responses to the set of stimuli. The model output was closely aligned with our electrophysiological data, since it predicted discrimination only for numerosity, total area, and convex hull. Our findings thus demonstrate that numerosity can be independently processed at an early stage in the visual cortex, even when completely isolated from other magnitude changes. The similar implicit discrimination for numerosity as for some continuous magnitudes, which correspond to basic visual percepts, shows that both can be extracted independently, hence substantiating the nature of numerosity as a primary feature of the visual scene. numerical cognition | numerosity extraction | fast periodic visual stimulation | quantities | nonsymbolic mathematical abilities

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The neural signature of numerosity by separating numerical and continuous magnitude extraction in visual cortex with frequency-tagged EEG

Rinsveld

Guillaumé

Kohler

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…To the best of our knowledge, only a single study has focused on the WM representation of numerosity in humans (Spitzer et al, 2014a), although some approximate numerosity perception studies used fMRI multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) method with WM-related paradigms focusing on the perceptual processes instead of the WM retention (Eger et al, 2009;Borghesani et al, 2019;Castaldi et al, 2019). Spitzer et al (2014a) probed the oscillations underlying multimodal WM representations by training participants to estimate numerosity from sequential auditory, visual, and tactile stimuli.…”

Section: Significance Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parametric Representation of Tactile Numerosity in Working Memory

Uluç

Velenosi

Schmidt

et al. 2020

eNeuro

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Estimated numerosity perception is processed in an approximate number system (ANS) that resembles the perception of a continuous magnitude. The ANS consists of a right lateralized frontoparietal network comprising the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and the intraparietal sulcus. Although the ANS has been extensively investigated, only a few studies have focused on the mental representation of retained numerosity estimates. Specifically, the underlying mechanisms of estimated numerosity working memory (WM) is unclear. Besides numerosities, as another form of abstract quantity, vibrotactile WM studies provide initial evidence that the right LPFC takes a central role in maintaining magnitudes. In the present fMRI multivariate pattern analysis study, we designed a delayed match-to-numerosity paradigm to test what brain regions retain approximate numerosity memoranda. In line with parametric WM results, our study found numerosity-specific WM representations in the right LPFC as well as in the supplementary motor area and the left premotor cortex extending into the superior frontal gyrus, thus bridging the gap in abstract quantity WM literature.

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“…However, independent of the execution of such numerical operations, enhanced activity for numbers as opposed to letters or colors was also to a lesser extent measured in HIPS during an orthogonal target detection task (Eger et al, 2003). Moreover, parietal regions were reported to habituate to repeated presentation of the same numerical quantity and show numerical distance-dependent recovery of activity for deviant numbers Cantlon et al, 2006;Ansari et al, 2006b) to some extent even across formats (Piazza et al, 2007;Vogel et al, 2017), to encode numerical quantity in multi-voxel patterns of evoked activity (Borghesani et al, 2018;Bulthé et al, 2014;Castaldi et al, 2016Castaldi et al, , 2019Cavdaroglu and Knops, 2018;Damarla and Just, 2013;Eger et al, 2009Eger et al, , 2015Lasne et al, 2018) and to contain topographically organized numerosity maps (Harvey et al, 2013;Dumoulin, 2017a, 2017b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Mapping numerical perception and operations in relation to functional and anatomical landmarks of human parietal cortex

Castaldi

Vignaud

Eger

2019

Preprint

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Human functional imaging has identified the middle part of the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) as an important brain substrate for different types of numerical tasks. This area is often equated with the macaque ventral intraparietal area (VIP) where neuronal selectivity for non-symbolic numbers is found. However, the low spatial resolution and whole-brain averaging analysis performed in most fMRI studies limit the extent to which an exact correspondence of activation in different numerical tasks with specific sub-regions of the IPS can be established.Here we disentangled the functional neuroanatomy of numerical perception and operations (comparison and calculation) by acquiring high-resolution 7T fMRI data in a group of human adults, and relating the activations in different numerical contrasts to anatomical and functional landmarks on the cortical surface. Our results reveal a functional heterogeneity within human intraparietal cortex where the visual field map representations in superior/medial parts of IPS and superior parietal gyrus are involved predominantly in numerosity perception, whereas numerical operations predominantly recruit lateral/inferior parts of IPS. Since calculation and comparison-related activity fell mainly outside the field map representations considered the functional equivalent of the monkey VIP/LIP complex, the areas most activated during such numerical operations in humans are likely different from VIP.

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Attentional amplification of neural codes for number independent of other quantities along the dorsal visual stream

Cited by 19 publications

References 55 publications

The neural signature of numerosity by separating numerical and continuous magnitude extraction in visual cortex with frequency-tagged EEG

The neural signature of numerosity by separating numerical and continuous magnitude extraction in visual cortex with frequency-tagged EEG

Parametric Representation of Tactile Numerosity in Working Memory

Mapping numerical perception and operations in relation to functional and anatomical landmarks of human parietal cortex

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