Is it logical to count on quantifiers? Dissociable neural networks underlying numerical and logical quantifiers

Abstract

The present study examined the neural substrate of two classes of quantifiers: Numerical quantifiers like "at least three" which require magnitude processing, and logical quantifiers like "some" which can be satisfied using a simple form of perceptual logic. We assessed these distinct classes of quantifiers with converging observations from two sources: functional imaging data from healthy adults, and behavioral and structural data from patients with corticobasal degeneration, who have acalculia. Our findings are consistent with the claim that numerical quantifier comprehension depends on a parietal-dorsolateral prefrontal network, but logical quantifier comprehension depends instead on a rostral medial prefrontal-posterior cingulate network. These observations emphasize the important contribution of abstract number knowledge to the meaning of numerical quantifiers in semantic memory and the potential role of a logic-based evaluation in the service of non-numerical quantifiers.

Quantifiers and Working Memory

“…We created situations similar to the span task to compare numerical quantifiers of low and high rank, parity quantifiers and proportional quantifiers. The results enrich and support the data obtained previously in [1][2][3] and predictions drawn from a computational model [4,5]. …”

“…However, drawing only from the computational model it is by no means obvious which factor adds more to cognitive difficulty: additional states or loops 3 . This constitutes one of the most interesting problems for our approach (see [2] for a more detailed discussion). A future research focusing on neurocognitive modeling of quantifier comprehension could help in clarifying the interrelations among computational aspects and their cognitive correlates.…”

Improving methodology of quantifier comprehension experiments

“…In the latest paper Troiani et al (2009) However, computational devices recognizing logical quantifiers have a fixed number of states while the number of states in automata corresponding to numerical quantifiers grows with the rank of the quantifier. This observation partially explains the differences in processing between those two types of quantifiers (Troiani et al 2009) and links them to the computational model. Taking this…”

Neural correlates of quantity processing of numeral classifiers.

“…Cardinal quantifier (or numerical quantifier; Morgan et al, 2011;Troiani et al, 2009) A phrase mapping numbers to the quantity of a set of objects.…”

“…It is partly overlapped with the first-order and higher order ones. Logical quantifier (or Aristotelean quantifier; Morgan et al, 2011;Troiani et al, 2009) A word or phrase mapping properties to truth values (Keenan & Paperno, 2010).…”