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Resources Underlying Visuo-Spatial Working Memory Enable Veridical Large Numerosity Perception.

Elisa Castaldi1,2, Manuela Piazza3, Evelyn Eger4

  • 1Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Pharmacology and Child Health, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
|December 6, 2021
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Visuo-spatial working memory is crucial for accurate numerosity perception. Impairing this memory biases large number estimations, suggesting shared cognitive resources for both abilities, potentially explaining deficits in developmental dyscalculia.

Keywords:
approximate number systemarithmeticdevelopmental dyscalculianumerosity perceptionsaliency mapvisuo-spatial working memory

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Developmental Psychology

Background:

  • Humans possess an innate ability to estimate object quantities, but the underlying cognitive mechanisms are debated.
  • Visuo-spatial working memory, involving mental mapping of object locations, is thought to support enumeration of small quantities.
  • Large numerosity perception is susceptible to biases from non-numerical features, particularly in individuals with developmental dyscalculia (DD).

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the role of visuo-spatial working memory in precise and unbiased perception of large numerosities.
  • To test if overloading working memory affects numerosity discrimination and susceptibility to non-numerical biases.
  • To explore the shared cognitive resources between visuo-spatial working memory and numerosity perception.

Main Methods:

  • Participants performed a numerosity discrimination task with varying numerical and non-numerical stimulus dimensions.
  • A concurrent visuo-spatial or verbal working memory task was administered to load cognitive resources.
  • Interference effects and correlations with arithmetical skills were analyzed.

Main Results:

  • Concurrent visuo-spatial working memory load, but not verbal load, impaired numerosity discrimination precision.
  • Participants showed increased bias towards non-numerical features (item size) during visuo-spatial working memory tasks.
  • This bias correlated with arithmetical skills, and interference was bidirectional between numerosity and visuo-spatial tasks.

Conclusions:

  • Accurate, unbiased perception of visual numerosity relies on object location segregation processes shared with visuo-spatial working memory.
  • These findings suggest a potential explanation for the co-occurrence of working memory and numerosity deficits in developmental dyscalculia.
  • The results highlight the critical role of visuo-spatial representations in quantitative cognition.