Lorenzi Elena, Perrino Matilde, Messina Andrea, Zanon Mirko, Vallortigara Giorgio
CIMeC, University of Trento, Rovereto, TN, 30868, Italy.
Heliyon. 2024 Jul 6;10(14):e34162. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e34162. eCollection 2024 Jul 30.
Whether non-symbolic encoding of quantity is predisposed at birth with dedicated hard-wired neural circuits is debated. Here we presented newly-hatched visually naive chicks with stimuli (flashing dots) of either identical or different numerousness (with a ratio 1:3) with their continuous physical appearance (size, contour length, density, convex hull) randomly changing. Chicks spontaneously tell apart the stimuli on the basis of the number of elements. Upon presentation of either fixed or changing numerousness chicks showed different expression of early gene in the visual Wulst, the hippocampal formation, the intermediate medial mesopallium, and the caudal part of the nidopallium caudolaterale. The results support the hypothesis that the ability to discriminate quantities does not require any specific instructive experience and involves a neural network with several populations of number-selective neurons. Evidence for innateness of non-symbolic numerical cognition have implications for both neurobiology and philosophy of mathematics.
数量的非符号编码是否在出生时就由专门的硬连线神经回路预先设定，这一点存在争议。在这里，我们向刚孵化出的、视觉上未受刺激的小鸡呈现刺激物（闪烁的点），这些刺激物的数量相同或不同（比例为1:3），其连续的物理外观（大小、轮廓长度、密度、凸包）随机变化。小鸡能根据元素数量自发地区分这些刺激物。在呈现固定或变化的数量时，小鸡在视觉中脑、海马结构、中间内侧中脑皮质和尾外侧巢皮质的尾部表现出早期基因的不同表达。结果支持了这样一种假设，即区分数量的能力不需要任何特定的指导性经验，并且涉及一个具有多个数字选择神经元群体的神经网络。非符号数字认知先天性的证据对神经生物学和数学哲学都有影响。
