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Showing posts from August 29, 2009

Number Sense

Man, in even in the lower stages of development, possesses a faculty which, for want of a better can be christened as Number Sense. This faculty permits him to recognize that something has changed in a small collection when, without his direct knowledge, an object has been removed from or added to the collection. Number sense should not be confused with counting, which is probably of a much later genre, and involves, as we shall see, a rather intricate mental process. Counting, so fast as we know, is an attribute exclusively human, whereas some brute species seems to possess a rudimentary number sense akin to our own. At least, such is the opinion of competent observers of animal behavior, and the theory is supported by a weighty mass of evidence. Counting especially has become such an integral part of our mental equipment that psychological tests on our number perception are fraught with great difficulties. The genesis of number is hidden behind the impenetrable veil of countless preh