Neural Substrates Correlated with Magnitude Processing in Children and Adults : An fMRI study examining the Triple Code Model of numerical cognition

Sammanfattning: The Triple Code Model (TCM) of numerical cognition has become one of the most predominantly theories for how humans perceive, manipulate, and communicate numerical information. It builds on the notion that there exist three functionally distinct but neurologically connected codes that handle manipulations of different numerical input (non-symbolic magnitudes, symbolic representations, and verbal number words). In this study, we add a developmental perspective by collecting child data and comparing it to existing adult data. The main question is whether or not children elicit the same neural correlates as adults while performing three different number comparison tasks in line with TCM. Neuroimaging data using fMRI were collected for a total of 20 participants (ten children and ten adults). The results suggest that children rely on more right-lateralized regions and that a developmental shift towards the left hemisphere and associated language areas occur during acquisition of mathematical proficiency.