Language, procedures, and the non-perceptual origin of number word meanings, by David Barner

INTRODUCTION

Beginning in infancy, humans share with other animals the ability to perceive objects, to chunk objects into arrays, and to discriminate these arrays on the basis of their approximate number. However, unlike other animals, humans have repeatedly invented external symbolic systems for representing number through the course of history (Menninger; Ifrah). These systems – which include verbal count lists, body counts, written numerals, and physical calculators like the abacus – allow us to go well beyond the limits of perception to express and manipulate precise numerosities, and to describe mathematical relations. Why only humans create such systems – and how we do so – is a topic of intense debate, which bridges research in anthropology, comparative psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and human development.

In developmental psychology, this debate has often focused on the role of natural language, and how evolutionarily ancient mechanisms might be exploited during language …