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Brains Hard-Wired for Math
mcgrew writes "New Scientist is reporting that "non-human primates really can understand the meaning of numerals." The small study of two rhesus monkeys reveals that cells in their brains respond selectively to specific number values — regardless of whether the amount is represented by dots on a screen or an Arabic numeral. For example, a given brain cell in the monkey will respond to the number three, but not the number one. The results suggest that individual cells in human brains might also have a fine-tuned preference for specific numerical values." The report itself is online at PLoS Biology, Semantic Associations between Signs and Numerical Categories in the Prefrontal Cortex."
My brain has a fine-tuned preference for the number 'one'.
So I guess we're not wired binary?
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
42 really is the answer!
Isn't it more likely that the brain responds to numbers, and is also able to learn an association between numerals and numbers?
To say that nonhuman primates respond to numerals makes it sound like they evolved to benefit from written language, which would be kinda weird, ya know.
Bottom of the friendly article: The results are not the first to suggest there may be specific brain cells tied to individual concepts. In 2005 researchers discovered that individual neurons become activated by images of specific celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston and Halle Berry.
So I guess it is up to individuals to decide how best to utilize limited brain cells. I'm pretty sure that those monkeys can tied a couple of their brain cells to other concepts given enough training.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
I wonder if the brains are wired for specific bases, like base 10.
I wonder if this means 'geeks' are tuned for 1337....
..::ALWAYS : watching::..
The decimal number (base 10) three is 0b11http://www.madonna.com/
In other news, reality is hardwired for math.
Seriously, why wouldn't a brain, which exists to process data in one form or another, respond to math positively at some level? Geometry is math, and that is hardwired in our brains to a high level. Any brain that has to process spacial information in any way must be predisposed to math.
I've co-taught an undergraduate mathematics course. Based on this experience and many others, I assure you the human mind is not hard-wired for math.
The Schwartz space ain't from Spaceballs.
Readers be at ease. No cute furry animals were used in the research: They shaved the monkeys and dressed them up to look like [inser favourite politician] first.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
For some reason I get aroused when I hear the number seven. Especially when it's followed by "of nine".
A colleague of mine once pointed out that the ability of most humans to sing (speak for yourself!), play music, and even distinguish different tunes implies an intrinsic hard-wired affinity for numbers since music depends on very specific ratios of frequencies to be gauged and produced accurately real time. You are in effect doing a Fourier transform of the music, finding the strongest peaks, and reproducing them and/or scaling them by fairly exact amounts (in spite of a broad spectrum of other frequencies present creating timbre). On top of that, one is usually doing this accurately in the context of much, much lower frequencies (i.e. rhythms/tempos on the scale of Hertz rather than "tones" on the scale of 100s of Hertz) as well. Of course, not all music is western, 12 tone, tuned the same, etc., etc. etc. But I think there may still be a (fairly well understood??) psycho-acoustic music-math connection in there.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
I wonder if this has something to do with the stigma certain numbers like seven and thirteen have?
In a far reaching experiment, a generic group of second year CS students trained a neural network classifier on pairs of images consisting of a number of dots, and a corresponding arabic symbol. The students trained their perceptron on four pairs of images representing the numbers 1 through 4. The successfully trained AI was then shown pairs of dots and numerals and identified incorrect pairings. An interesting feature of the experiment is that some of the neural network's weights appear to trigger on specific patterns. According to the students, this means that the AI is now able to count to infinity (in principle), and may well win next year's Loebner prize.
Based on my experiences teaching science classes, not ALL brains are hard-wired for math.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
When I was a kid, I went to this circus where a dog could do simple nemerical calculations, which leads to answer of a single digit number (i.e. 1-10). Small plates with printed number (1-10) are displayed in a circle, once the dogs are commanded to pick a number, dog does it. When a calculation is given, dog will go around few times then pick the number, which is the answer. I am not sure how they trained those dogs. But I observed, that sometimes, dogs tend to pick the wrong number.
The notion that primates are genetically predisposed to have mathematical ability is tenuous. Why should we believe there is some neural circuitry designed explicitly for math? First of all, all studies teaching non-human primates to count involve extensive training of the primates; it doesn't just "click" for them. This would suggest that it is a struggle for them to learn the concept of counting and mathematics. (Of course it doesn't help that TFA is extremely light on the gory details of the methodology and results of the study.)
Secondly, the Pirahã people of Amazonia do not have numbers or counting. Professor Everett, despite months of instruction, was unable to make any progress in teaching them how to count. The Pirahã themselves were highly motivated learners, as they didn't want to be ripped off in trade by visiting merchants, but nevertheless, they had no success in learning the most basic concepts of math. Indeed the Pirahã language has no numerals, and is claimed to have no quantifiers, either.
Relevant readings:
Everett, D.L. (2005). Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahã. Current Anthropology, 46, 621-646.
Hauser, M.D., Chomsky, N. and Fitch, W.T. (2002) The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science, 298, 1569-1579.
Pinker, S. & Jackendoff, R. (in press). The components of language: What's specific to language, and What's specific to humans? In M.H. Christiansen, C. Collins & S. Edelman (Eds.), Language universals. New York: Oxford University Press.
"When I wake up in the morning I piss cryptographic excellence." - Bruce Schneier
Well of course the PRNGs in their little monkey brains are seeded differently. Otherwise, an infinite number of them sat at typewriters would all type exactly the same gibberish, and we wouldn't have any Shakespeare.
They're not wired for exact sums, they're wired for approximation. Once you can convince people of their ignorance of math they'll fly off into all kinds of logically-predicted directions of randomness. BINGO! People do not understand math! Simple.
Good! Let's fire Diebold and hire them to count the ballots instead.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I wish they'd teach me math then; considering my college math grades, I'm worse off than these monkeys.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Let get this over with... 69 there its done.
There already are cells for numbers, namely the follicles in the ear that are used to detect pitch IIRC each cell picks up a specific frequency.
I suspect that the more species they experiment with, the more they're going to find with some concept of numbers. What could be more important to survival than choosing the most abundant food source when other factors are equal? I seem to recall that some parrots actually count, but I can't recall where I got that information.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
From the point of view of most of the 20th century, doing things by tens and hundreds looked more rational. In fact the SI system derives its unit of length from the concept of dividing the circle into 400 parts, each 100000 metres long at an average Earth Great Circle. (The Germans still use grads.)Why 100000? Because the metre still needed to come out somewhere near the familiar yard or ell.
However, preindustrial people would prefer 360 because it allows for more "natural" divisions of the circle (into quarters, fifths,sixths,eighths, tenths, twelths) than 400, which really only allows divisions into powers of 2 and 5. And postcomputer people don't care because the computer can manage all the complexity of units with ease.
"Isn't it more likely that the brain responds to numbers, and is also able to learn an association between numerals and numbers?"
Actually the brain is geared to understand visual (and other) frequencies and "numbers" are nothing more then deduced descriptions of our visual geometric world. Math was built into the universe, and our systems of math are nothing more really then mutations of basic math embedded in nature. In fact we might say mathematics is lower down on the chain then visual geometry. Since symbolic math is a description OF visual geometry (or simply patterns of data).
these people should read Hawkins' book "On Intelligence". It will help them understand how the brain actually might work. Concluding something is "hardwired" for numbers is almost laughable.
It's one... two... many... lots.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Numbers are just patterns. a numeral is a pattern that represents a pattern.
most animals that can deduct from their surroundings and make logical choices can probably distinguish numbers.
except, with us, we actually know what 1,000 is and means, or 1,000,000,000 is, and what it represents. where most animals can probably deduce that 4 rhythmic patterns is 4, and 10 rhythmic patterns is 10, or two sets of 5 rhythmic patterns.
I may not be a scientist or a researcher, but pattern recognition is how one figures out a problem or how their surrounding environment is acting around them.
now I'd like to see this tested on a species that cant deduce patterns in its environment. then we'll see something interesting.
So, don't think of infinity. Your skull will explode...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Or Roman numeral, or "mapkinase" numeral, or numbers represented by the covers of "Man of the Year" issues of Time magazine.
Seriously.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
"...non-human primates really can understand the meaning of numerals."
Developers, developers, developers...
otherwise he would have used singular 'developer' so he can COUNT more than 1!
You're thinking of Peano arithmetic. Unary is a common name for the number representation of Peano arithmetic. It also shows up in data compression, where it tells how many bits a gamma-coded number contains or the most significant bits of a Rice-coded number.
... they're still monkeys and we're running the show -- they have no concept of Numero Uno.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Linus Torvalds understands his 0S,
Richard Stallman understands 0SS.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
That chimp selected the 3 because it looks like a butt or a pair of breast when you look at it sideways.
Joking aside, the number 3 is a representation that we could have made by drawing something else but it was that drawing that made the cut, how would a chimp decipher what we humans have taken for granted that 3 means well 1+1+1, and is represented by the 3
We put names on stuff, the word one and the digit representing one was not always there. We can only assume that those numbers are derived from finger counting one finger looks like 1, 3 fingers looks like well 3 fingers sideways but what about 2 or 4 or 5 6,,,,they dont fit, so the chimp, apart from finding the drawing appealing does not mean it has a mathematical value in it's head.
My brain is prewired for a number... 42
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Strange... I've always favoured two. Preferably twins
So some neurons are be tied to the concept of "three" which is an abstraction. Primates can abstract up to that level and more. So the relation to math seems not so direct, I'd not call it being wired. There might be much math and fuzzy logic goes on in the brain, at a lower level, but it doesn't traslate to powerful math ability at conscience level.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
no text
Medium cat is MEDIUM.
"Non-human primates"? Reminds me of the "pilotless drone" bit from The Seanachai
http://www.theseanachai.com/2007/04/04/yeah-yeah-but-whos-flying-the-plane/
http://www.theseanachai.com/podpress_trac/web/206/0/plane.mp3
I can think of at least 2 reasons why monkeys may prefer the number 3, and it has nothing to do with numbers.
o3- (boobs)
o-3 (butts)
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
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Was it the same cell or group of cells in all of the monkeys, or was it different cells or groups of cells in different monkeys that registered the numbers.
Hardwired implies that it is specific cells that should be the same in all of the monkeys.
If you selectively destroyed all the cells that respond to a digit, say 5. Is the monkey then no longer able to respond to 5 as a stimulus, or would other cells "relearn" the meaning of 5? Is such "relearning" possible if the knowledge was truly hardwired?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
This is why I get those uncontrollable urges to speak in Algebraic terms! You X^2+Y^2= f(x) !!!
Piano arithmetic is base C. :P
...I want the old one back.
Some decades ago, there was an experiment involving crows that eventually determined that the "counting" abilities of crows went about as follows: "one, two, three, many". They determined that crows could tell the difference between a group of two and a group of three, but not between a group of six and a group of seven.
This is because the change between a group of two and a group of three is 50% and is directly noticeable -- but if you want to know whether a football team has 12 men on the field instead of 11, you must actually *count*, which is a conceptually abstract process which animals cannot perform.
According to TFA, the numbers the researchers used were between one and four! There is no grounds to conclude from this that there is anything like "counting" going on. When the subjects can notice the difference between 20 and 21 (and the researchers don't "cheat" by grouping the dots in such a way as the shape of the groups is perceivably different), then they can make that claim.
That people can close their eyes and catch a ball suggests that we can do at least basic algeobra/calculus.
estimates of the volumes of diffrent containers suggests something similar.
it's S0, and SS0
Its Hindu-Arabic Numerals, not Arabic Numerals.
Math is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
So, if we seem to have a cell that responds to 1, then to 2, then to 3, does it really make sense? This is like the classic "grandmother cell" argument in the visual system - that we have a single neuron that fires when we see our grandmother. This is, of course, not true. So let's think - how many cells would it take to recognize every number individually? Too many. This seems to be a classic case of "labeled line" theory vs "population coding". It's far more likely that a population of neurons light up to mathematical quantities and different populations represent different numbers. That way you can recognize everything in a much more compact sense. Oh... and we're probably not wired for any particular form of math (in terms of base). That would be pretty arbitrary and unhelpful, though no one's proven it, so it could be true... but I doubt it.
I read that as "Brains Hard-Wired for Meth"...
must of be missing in a lot of kids...explains the blank stares.
"Trying to think, but nothing happens!"
Well, the summary says primates have the notion of numbers.
...etc. The experiment was that they stayed away from gun range. Even when the farmer/experimenter went into building and shot them from the window, they figured it out. The crows would not venture near the building if they saw someone go in. The farmer/experimenter then tried to outsmart them and got another person to go with him to the building, and then leave. In other words they could count one and two.
Decades ago I read a book in Russia about animal behavior and such.
In it, there was an interesting case of how crows are smart,
I think this went on until a certain number was reached (can't remember exactly which is it, but it is a single digit), then it did not work anymore.
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base 3 = base nr. 3 = 3rd base.