Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Lyon 1, Bron, France.
Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education, Université de Genève, 1205 Genève, Switzerland.
Cereb Cortex. 2018 May 1;28(5):1673-1684. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx064.
Do mathematical symbols evoke spatial representations? Although behavioral studies have long demonstrated interactions between space and the processing of Arabic digits, how to interpret these results remains controversial. Here, we tested whether activity in regions supporting spatial processing contributes to the processing of symbols conveying fundamental arithmetic concepts-such as operation signs-even in the absence of associated digits. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that merely perceiving a "+" sign triggers activity in brain regions that support the orienting of spatial attention in adults. Activity in these regions was greater for "+" than for "×" signs, indicating that it is modulated by whether an operator reflects an operation that evokes numerical manipulation (rather than rote memorization). Finally, the degree to which subjects activated a spatial region in response to a "+" sign was correlated with the degree to which subjects benefited from being briefly presented with that sign before having to calculate a single-digit addition problem, an effect termed operator-priming. Therefore, not only are some arithmetic operators linked to spatial intuitions, but such intuitions might also have an important role during arithmetic calculation. More generally, our findings support the view that mathematical symbols inherently evoke spatial representations.
数学符号是否能唤起空间表象？尽管行为研究长期以来一直表明空间和阿拉伯数字处理之间存在相互作用，但如何解释这些结果仍存在争议。在这里，我们测试了支持空间处理的区域的活动是否有助于处理传达基本算术概念的符号——例如运算符符号——即使没有相关数字。使用功能磁共振成像，我们表明，仅仅感知“+”符号就会触发大脑区域中支持成年人空间注意力定向的活动。这些区域的活动对于“+”符号比“×”符号更强，表明它受到运算符是否反映了引起数字操作（而不是机械记忆）的操作的调制。最后，受试者对“+”符号的反应激活了一个空间区域的程度与他们在不得不计算一个一位数加法问题之前被短暂呈现该符号时受益的程度相关，这种效应称为运算符启动。因此，不仅一些算术运算符与空间直觉相关，而且这种直觉在算术计算中也可能具有重要作用。更一般地，我们的发现支持这样一种观点，即数学符号本质上唤起空间表象。
