Are numbers' mental representations spatially encoded? Around the representational Effect in Mathematics

David Zarebski (1)

1 IHPST - Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques

Current cognitive accounts on numbers’ mental representations do not agree on their spatial-sensitive nature. On one hand, a Internalist neuro-based approach, supported by trans-notational conservation of cognitive effects related with mathematical tasks has postulate a quantity-based analogical format while the concurrent Externalist problem solving based approach has suggested that some of the primitive components of numbers’ mental representation might depend directly to the spatial features of numbers’ written representations. The purpose of this article is an epistemological and descriptive one. Advocating for the second tradition, we shall present both accounts, focusing on exotic cases of non-positional number systems, to disentangle their shallow contradiction.

Mots clés: mathematics; mathematical cognition; spatial reasoning; problem solving; Non-standard positional numeral systems; numeral systems

Domaines: Philosophie; Psychologie

David Zarebski. Are numbers' mental representations spatially encoded? Around the representational Effect in Mathematics. Philosophy of Science in a Forest, De Nederlandse Vereniging voor Wetenschapsfilosofie, May 2013, Leusden, Netherlands. ⟨halshs-01145364⟩