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Number-action mapping in human newborns.

Maria Dolores de Hevia1, Vittoria Volpi1, Yasmine Iraki1

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Newborns can link numerical magnitude to hand actions, showing an innate ability to map number to sensorimotor information. This suggests early connections between numerical cognition and action processing are present from birth.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Humans possess an innate ability to integrate sensory information across modalities.
  • Cross-dimensional magnitude mapping, linking numerical changes to spatial or temporal ones, is observed in older individuals.
  • The presence of numerical magnitude to action mapping at birth remains uninvestigated.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether newborns can map numerical magnitude onto action-related information, specifically hand aperture amplitude.
  • To determine if this action-number mapping is present from the earliest stages of postnatal life.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments were conducted with newborns (N=48).
  • Stimuli involved presenting newborns with changes in both numerical quantity and hand aperture.
  • Newborns' looking preferences were recorded to assess their responses to congruent and incongruent pairings.

Main Results:

  • Newborns preferred congruent numerical-to-hand aperture pairings when stimuli featured biological hands.
  • This preference was absent when congruency was disrupted or non-biological apertures were used.
  • Results indicate the mapping is not based on general novelty or abstract aperture configurations.

Conclusions:

  • Newborns exhibit an abstract magnitude mapping between number and action.
  • This action-number mapping appears to be present at birth.
  • Findings suggest early integration of sensorimotor processes and numerical cognition.