Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley.
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Psychol Sci. 2022 Mar;33(3):371-381. doi: 10.1177/09567976211034502. Epub 2022 Feb 8.
Previous findings suggest that mentally representing exact numbers larger than four depends on a verbal count routine (e.g., "one, two, three . . ."). However, these findings are controversial because they rely on comparisons across radically different languages and cultures. We tested the role of language in number concepts within a single population-the Tsimane' of Bolivia-in which knowledge of number words varies across individual adults. We used a novel data-analysis model to quantify the point at which participants ( = 30) switched from exact to approximate number representations during a simple numerical matching task. The results show that these behavioral switch points were bounded by participants' verbal count ranges; their representations of exact cardinalities were limited to the number words they knew. Beyond that range, they resorted to numerical approximation. These results resolve competing accounts of previous findings and provide unambiguous evidence that large exact number concepts are enabled by language.
先前的研究结果表明，精确数量的心理呈现（如“一、二、三……”）依赖于语言的计数过程。然而，这些发现存在争议，因为它们依赖于在完全不同的语言和文化之间进行比较。我们在一个单一的人群——玻利维亚的提斯曼人中测试了语言在数字概念中的作用，在这个人群中，个体成年人对数字词的了解存在差异。我们使用了一种新的数据分析模型，来量化参与者（n=30）在简单的数字匹配任务中从精确数字表示切换到近似数字表示的临界点。结果表明，这些行为转换点受到参与者语言计数范围的限制；他们对精确基数的表示仅限于他们所知道的数字词。在这个范围之外，他们则采用了数值近似。这些结果解决了先前研究结果的争议，并提供了明确的证据，证明了大的精确数量概念是由语言实现的。
