[en] Humans can effortlessly abstract numerical information from various codes and contexts. However, whether the access to the underlying magnitude information relies on common or distinct brain representations remains highly debated. Here, we recorded electrophysiological responses to periodic variation of numerosity (every five items) occurring in rapid streams of numbers presented at 6 Hz in randomly varying codes-Arabic digits, number words, canonical dot patterns and finger configurations. Results demonstrated that numerical information was abstracted and generalized over the different representation codes by revealing clear discrimination responses (at 1.2 Hz) of the deviant numerosity from the base numerosity, recorded over parieto-occipital electrodes. Crucially, and supporting the claim that discrimination responses reflected magnitude processing, the presentation of a deviant numerosity distant from the base (e.g., base "2" and deviant "8") elicited larger right-hemispheric responses than the presentation of a close deviant numerosity (e.g., base "2" and deviant "3"). This finding nicely represents the neural signature of the distance effect, an interpretation further reinforced by the clear correlation with individuals' behavioral performance in an independent numerical comparison task. Our results therefore provide for the first time unambiguously a reliable and specific neural marker of a magnitude representation that is shared among several numerical codes.
Disciplines :
Neurosciences & behavior
Author, co-author :
Marlair, Cathy; Institute of Psychology (IPSY) and Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS), Université Catholique de Louvain, Place Cardinal Mercier 10, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. cathy.marlair@uclouvain.be
Crollen, Virginie; Institute of Psychology (IPSY) and Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS), Université Catholique de Louvain, Place Cardinal Mercier 10, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
LOCHY, Aliette ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS) > Cognitive Science and Assessment ; Institute of Psychology (IPSY) and Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS), Université Catholique de Louvain, Place Cardinal Mercier 10, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
External co-authors :
yes
Language :
English
Title :
A shared numerical magnitude representation evidenced by the distance effect in frequency-tagging EEG.
Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS Fonds Spéciaux de Recherche
Funding text :
We are grateful to Florine Deconinck for her help in data collection. This work was supported by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS, Belgium) under FRESH Grant n° FC38635 (CM) and by the “Seed funding” program (ADi/DB/10063.2018) of the UCLouvain Fonds Spécial de Recherche (FSR, Belgium) (VC).
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