Language and the origin of numerical concepts. Export

@article{citeulike:265576, abstract = {Reports of research with the Pirah\~{a} and Munduruk\'{u} Amazonian Indians of Brazil lend themselves to discussions of the role of language in the origin of numerical concepts. The research findings indicate that, whether or not humans have an extensive counting list, they share with nonverbal animals a language-independent representation of number, with limited, scale-invariant precision. What causal role, then, does knowledge of the language of counting serve? We consider the strong Whorfian proposal, that of linguistic determinism; the weak Whorfian hypothesis, that language influences how we think; and that the "language of thought" maps to spoken language or symbol systems.}, address = {Psychology and Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854. USA. rgelman@ruccs.rutgers.edu}, author = {Gelman, R. and Gallistel, C. R.}, citeulike-article-id = {265576}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1105144}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/306/5695/441}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15486289}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=15486289}, day = {15}, doi = {10.1126/science.1105144}, issn = {1095-9203}, journal = {Science}, keywords = {amazon, cognition, language, math, number, pirah, sapir-whorf\_hypothesis}, month = {October}, number = {5695}, pages = {441--443}, posted-at = {2006-03-01 20:25:48}, priority = {2}, title = {Language and the origin of numerical concepts.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1105144}, volume = {306}, year = {2004} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:265576 L3 - citeulike-article-id:265576 N2 - Reports of research with the Pirahã and Mundurukú Amazonian Indians of Brazil lend themselves to discussions of the role of language in the origin of numerical concepts. The research findings indicate that, whether or not humans have an extensive counting list, they share with nonverbal animals a language-independent representation of number, with limited, scale-invariant precision. What causal role, then, does knowledge of the language of counting serve? We consider the strong Whorfian proposal, that of linguistic determinism; the weak Whorfian hypothesis, that language influences how we think; and that the "language of thought" maps to spoken language or symbol systems. IS - 5695 JF - Science SN - 1095-9203 AD - Psychology and Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854. USA. rgelman@ruccs.rutgers.edu EP - 443 TI - Language and the origin of numerical concepts. VL - 306 SP - 441 KW - amazon KW - cognition KW - language KW - math KW - number KW - pirah KW - sapir-whorf_hypothesis AU - Gelman, R AU - Gallistel, CR PY - 2004/10/15/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1105144 ER -