Numerical cognition without words: evidence from Amazonia - PubMed

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• PMID: 15319490
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1094492

Numerical cognition without words: evidence from Amazonia

Peter Gordon. Science. 2004.

Abstract

Members of the Pirahã tribe use a "one-two-many" system of counting. I ask whether speakers of this innumerate language can appreciate larger numerosities without the benefit of words to encode them. This addresses the classic Whorfian question about whether language can determine thought. Results of numerical tasks with varying cognitive demands show that numerical cognition is clearly affected by the lack of a counting system in the language. Performance with quantities greater than three was remarkably poor, but showed a constant coefficient of variation, which is suggestive of an analog estimation process.

Comment in

• Evolution versus invention.

  Premack D, Premack A. Premack D, et al. Science. 2005 Feb 4;307(5710):673. doi: 10.1126/science.307.5710.673b. Science. 2005. PMID: 15692032 No abstract available.

• Crying "Whorf".

  Casasanto D. Casasanto D. Science. 2005 Mar 18;307(5716):1721-2; author reply 1721-2. Science. 2005. PMID: 15779116 No abstract available.

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