Link made between innate sense for numbers and maths skill

by Rich Bowden - Sep 8 2008, 04:21

U.S. scientists have found an evolutionary cause for those with a natural skill at advanced mathematics, with new research showing it all depends on an innate, intuitive grasp for numbers.

Img: Blackboard algebra. Credit: darnok/morguefile

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have discovered that an ability to quickly gauge quantities is evolutionary based and this, combined with a good education, leads to a better grasp of mathematics."It is difficult to overstate the importance of the 'number sense' for all kinds of animals," said lead researcher Justin Halberda, a cognitive scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland."Maximising your search for food, finding a seat on the bus, recognizing the difference between a mating call and an alarm call in a particular species of bird by the number of warbles -- all of these require the ANS [approximate number system]," he explained to news agency AFP.The study, published in Nature, examined 64 school-attending, 14-year-old children and flashed a variety of screens in front of their eyes consisting of a number of yellow and blue dots. The images appeared too quickly to count and the students were asked to guess which of the dots were more numerous. The results showed that those who scored highly in the estimate tests had also achieved in maths throughout their years of school."We discovered that a child's ability to quickly estimate how many things are in a group significantly correlates with that child's performance in school math for every single year, reaching all the way back to when he or she was in kindergarten," Halberda said."What this seems to mean is that the very basic number sense that we humans share with animals is related to the formal mathematics that we learn in school," Halberda concluded. "The number sense we share with the animals and the formal math we learn in school may interact and inform each other throughout our lives."However, the team was quick to add that success or failure in mathematics is not necessarily genetically programmed.

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BobSep 8th, 2008 - 10:14:37

A related topic that I think worthy of investigation is what I call the “measure sense”. I find chalk and cheese differences between people in judgement of size and distance. Whether a plank will span a scaffold, or piece of furniture fit through a doorway, or picking a nut (at the first try) to match a bolt from a tray of assorted nuts.

But I am not clear what these comparisons have to do with evolution. If the skill is advantageous, how did those with lesser skill evolve? Are there non-mechanical skills (eg conceptual thinking, interpersonal or organizational ability, or whatever) that can be found in some sort of negative correlation with the mechanical aptitudes?

Also, it isn’t clear from this (admittedly brief) synopsis whether innate skill enabled some students to do well at math, or whether coaching (or just diligence) at math developed a talent for recognizing patterns in terms of the numbers that make them up.

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Link made between innate sense for numbers and maths skill

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