28 November 2019, CoSaQ reading group, Arnold Kochari

Humans can perceive, represent and compare quantities that are presented nonsymbolically (e.g., as arrays of objects visually or as a series of tones aurally), as well as quantities that are presented using arbitrary symbols and natural language. In the former case, we can make an approximation of the quantity of elements and compare them. In the latter case, a set of conventions can be learnt to represent the cardinality (e.g., Arabic digits, number words, Roman numerals etc. such as ‘7’ or ’seven’) or a relationship between cardinalities (e.g., quantifiers such as ’many’, ’few’). At this meeting, I will start by giving an overview of the vast amount of research that has been conducted to investigate neural processes underpinning representation and comparison of cardinality of nonsymbolic arrays and number symbols. I will then try to relate this to the research that has been done on quantifiers as another way to symbolically refer to (relationships between) quantities. This is a project in progress, so throughout the presentation, I would like to get your feedback.