semantic associations between signs and numerical categories in the prefrontal cortex符号和数值之间的语义关联类别在前额叶皮层.pdfVIP

PLoS BIOLOGY Semantic Associations between Signs and Numerical Categories in the Prefrontal Cortex * Ilka Diester, Andreas Nieder ¨ ¨ Primate NeuroCognition Laboratory, Department of Cognitive Neurology, Hertie-Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tubingen, Tubingen, Germany The utilization of symbols such as words and numbers as mental tools endows humans with unrivalled cognitive flexibility. In the number domain, a fundamental first step for the acquisition of numerical symbols is the semantic association of signs with cardinalities. We explored the primitives of such a semantic mapping process by recording single- cell activity in the monkey prefrontal and parietal cortices, brain structures critically involved in numerical cognition. Monkeys were trained to associate visual shapes with varying numbers of items in a matching task. After this long-term learning process, we found that the responses of many prefrontal neurons to the visual shapes reflected the associated numerical value in a behaviorally relevant way. In contrast, such association neurons were rarely found in the parietal lobe. These findings suggest a cardinal role of the prefrontal cortex in establishing semantic associations between signs and abstract categories, a cognitive precursor that may ultimately give rise to symbolic thinking in linguistic humans. Citation: Diester I, Nieder A (2007) Semantic associations between signs and numerical categories in the prefrontal cortex. PLoS Biol 5(11): e294. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio. 0050294 Introduction If the