Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0515, USA.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2017 Jun;21(6):409-424. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2017.03.005.
Humans and other species have biologically endowed abilities for discriminating quantities. A widely accepted view sees such abilities as an evolved capacity specific for number and arithmetic. This view, however, is based on an implicit teleological rationale, builds on inaccurate conceptions of biological evolution, downplays human data from non-industrialized cultures, overinterprets results from trained animals, and is enabled by loose terminology that facilitates teleological argumentation. A distinction between quantical (e.g., quantity discrimination) and numerical (exact, symbolic) cognition is needed: quantical cognition provides biologically evolved preconditions for numerical cognition but it does not scale up to number and arithmetic, which require cultural mediation. The argument has implications for debates about the origins of other special capacities - geometry, music, art, and language.
人类和其他物种在生物学上具有区分数量的能力。一种被广泛接受的观点认为，这些能力是一种专门针对数字和算术的进化能力。然而，这种观点基于一种隐含的目的论推理，建立在对生物进化不准确的概念之上，轻视非工业化文化中的人类数据，过度解释受过训练的动物的结果，并受到有助于目的论论证的宽松术语的支持。需要区分量化（例如，数量辨别）和数值（精确的、符号的）认知：量化认知为数值认知提供了生物学上进化的前提条件，但它不会扩展到数字和算术，而数字和算术需要文化媒介。这个论点对关于其他特殊能力——几何、音乐、艺术和语言——起源的争论有影响。
