bat is a number, that a man may know it, and a man, that he英文资料.pdfVIP

Cognition,44 (1992) l-42 Stanislas Dehaene* M et CNRS. Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, 54 Bd. Raspail, 75270 Paris Cedex 06, France Dehaene, S., 1992. Varieties of numerical abilities. Cognition, 44: l-42. .T”ti paper b, ovides a tutorial introduction to numerical cognition, with a review of essential findings and current points of debate. A tacit hypothesis in cognitive arithmetic is that numerical abilities derivefrom human linguistic competence. One aim of this special issue is to confront this hypothesis with current knowledge of number representations in animals, infants, normal and gifted adults, and brain- lesioned patients. First, the historical evolution of number notations is presented, together with the mental processes for calculating and transcoding from one rotation to another. While these domains are well described by formal symbol- processing models, thispaper argues that such is not the casefor two other domains of ~~rner~c~lcompetence: quantification and approximation. The evidence for counting, subitizing and numerosity estimation in infants, children, adults and animals is critically examined. Data are also presented which suggest a specializa- tion for processing approximate numerical qutpntities in animals and humans. A synthesis of thesefindings is proposed in the form of a triple-code model, which assumes that nmmbers are mentally manipulated in an arabic, verbal or analogical rnQg~~tudecode depending on the requested mental operation. Only the analogical magnitude representation seems available to animals and preverbai infan