Lorenzi Elena, Perrino Matilde, Vallortigara Giorgio
Centre for Mind/Brain Science, CIMeC, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2021 Apr 15;12:641994. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.641994. eCollection 2021.
The ability to represent, discriminate, and perform arithmetic operations on discrete quantities (numerosities) has been documented in a variety of species of different taxonomic groups, both vertebrates and invertebrates. We do not know, however, to what extent similarity in behavioral data corresponds to basic similarity in underlying neural mechanisms. Here, we review evidence for magnitude representation, both discrete (countable) and continuous, following the sensory input path from primary sensory systems to associative pallial territories in the vertebrate brains. We also speculate on possible underlying mechanisms in invertebrate brains and on the role played by modeling with artificial neural networks. This may provide a general overview on the nervous system involvement in approximating quantity in different animal species, and a general theoretical framework to future comparative studies on the neurobiology of number cognition.
在不同分类群体的多种物种中，包括脊椎动物和无脊椎动物，都已证明存在对离散数量（数字大小）进行表征、辨别和执行算术运算的能力。然而，我们并不清楚行为数据上的相似性在多大程度上与潜在神经机制的基本相似性相对应。在此，我们回顾了从脊椎动物大脑中的初级感觉系统到联合脑皮层区域的感觉输入路径之后，关于数量表征的证据，包括离散（可数）和连续的数量表征。我们还推测了无脊椎动物大脑中可能的潜在机制以及人工神经网络建模所起的作用。这可能为不同动物物种中神经系统参与数量近似的情况提供一个总体概述，并为未来关于数字认知神经生物学的比较研究提供一个通用的理论框架。
