Gallistel CR, Gelman I
Department of Psychology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2000 Feb;4(2):59-65. doi: 10.1016/s1364-6613(99)01424-2.
Data on numerical processing by verbal (human) and non-verbal (animal and human) subjects are integrated by the hypothesis that a non-verbal counting process represents discrete (countable) quantities by means of magnitudes with scalar variability. These appear to be identical to the magnitudes that represent continuous (uncountable) quantities such as duration. The magnitudes representing countable quantity are generated by a discrete incrementing process, which defines next magnitudes and yields a discrete ordering. In the case of continuous quantities, the continuous accumulation process does not define next magnitudes, so the ordering is also continuous ('dense'). The magnitudes representing both countable and uncountable quantity are arithmetically combined in, for example, the computation of the income to be expected from a foraging patch. Thus, on the hypothesis presented here, the primitive machinery for arithmetic processing works with real numbers (magnitudes).
关于言语（人类）和非言语（动物和人类）主体进行数字处理的数据，通过以下假设进行整合：非言语计数过程通过具有标量变异性的量值来表示离散（可数）量。这些量值似乎与表示持续时间等连续（不可数）量的量值相同。表示可数数量的量值由离散递增过程生成，该过程定义下一个量值并产生离散排序。对于连续量，连续积累过程不定义下一个量值，因此排序也是连续的（“密集的”）。表示可数和不可数数量的量值在例如计算觅食斑块预期收入时进行算术组合。因此，根据此处提出的假设，算术处理的原始机制处理实数（量值）。
