NeuroMath · Acquisition of Mathematical Concepts in the Human Brain
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-09-01 → 2023-07-28
- EU contribution
- €246,844
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Acquisition of Mathematical Concepts in the Human Brain
Humans are the only species that understand abstract math concepts. Even in absence of formal education and specific lexicon, humans possess intuitions of arithmetic and geometry. At the brain level, these intuitions are associated with activity in the intraparietal sulcus. However, to date, the cognitive and neural mechanisms by which the human brain forges the meaning of advanced math concepts remain largely unknown. Previous work in adults has suggested that advanced math reflection on long mastered concepts does not rely on the brain circuits for language but recycles evolutionarily ancient systems for numerosity and space processing. These findings raise several questions: does language play a role in math acquisition at school where knowledge is taught verbally and often involves complex multimodal input? How quickly are newly learnt math concepts integrated to the brain’s math-responsive network? To what extent does children’s neural activity in the math-responsive network resemble adults’ during learning? Addressing these questions requires a change of paradigm: going beyond traditional laboratory investigations of math processing in simplified tasks testing simple, known concepts. The first goal of this project was thus to introduce and test a novel fMRI paradigm that combines neuroimaging techniques with developmental and educational methods, in both adults and children. The results of the action give a first indication that such a paradigm can be used to study math learning in the human brain and point towards the further hypothesis that brain activity within the math-responsive network during a short math video lesson relates to the amount of learning.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
How do humans learn and manipulate mathematical concepts? In previous research, I have shown that (1) advanced mathematical reflection on concepts encoded for many years does not recruit the brain circuits for language; (2) non-verbal acquisition of geometrical rules call upon a language of thought that is independent of natural spoken language. However, the question remains to understand whether advanced mathematical acquisition in schools, where knowledge is taught verbally, also dispenses with the human ability for language. Building on the expertise I have acquired in functional MRI testing of math experts, with the help of my supervisors, the present project proposes to track the evolution of children and adults' brain activity during learning. To this end, we will expose participants to typical classroom lessons with math-related content. Using fMRI, coupled with traditional general linear model and original inter-subject correlation analyses, we particularly aim to investigate whether (1) similar learning neural mechanisms are at work in adulthood and childhood; (2) language plays a role in mathematical acquisition; (3) understanding dropout correlates with a specific neural marker. A first experiment will aim to identify brain activation that changes with learning of math versus general semantic concepts in adults. It will be conducted in Italy, under the supervision of Pr. Piazza who is a leading expert in the field of math cognition, and mainly uses fMRI to study the plastic changes occurring in the brain during learning in particular of symbols (words, numbers, and math symbols). A second experiment will probe whether the neural patterns observed during adult learning of math laws also apply to children's learning of math laws such as commutativity. It will be conducted in the US, under the supervision of Pr. Spelke who is renowned for her work on the infants’ development especially of math “core knowledge”.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TRENTO · TrentoCoordinatorItaly
- PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE · CambridgeUnited States
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union