
Psychology Colloquium: The Cognitive Neurobiology of Number Sense
College of Science
What underlies the ability to deal with numbers and where did it come from? It has been hypothesized that our ability to accurately represent the number of objects in a set (numerousness), and to carry out numerical comparisons and arithmetic, developed from an evolutionarily conserved system for approximating numerical magnitude. Non-symbolic number cognition based on an approximate sense of magnitude has been documented in a variety of species. However, we know little about its origins (i.e., to what extent experience would shape it) and of its neural and molecular bases.
Speakers

Dr. Giorgio Vallortigara
Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Animal Cognition and Neuroscience Laboratory at the Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences
University of Trento, Italy