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Finger counting: The missing tool?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2008

Michael Andres ,
Samuel Di Luca  and
Mauro Pesenti
Michael Andres
Affiliation:
Cognitive Neuroscience Unit and Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Catholic University of Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgiummichael.andres@uclouvain.besamuel.diluca@uclouvain.bemauro.pesenti@uclouvain.be
Samuel Di Luca
Affiliation:
Cognitive Neuroscience Unit and Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Catholic University of Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgiummichael.andres@uclouvain.besamuel.diluca@uclouvain.bemauro.pesenti@uclouvain.be
Mauro Pesenti
Affiliation:
Cognitive Neuroscience Unit and Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Catholic University of Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgiummichael.andres@uclouvain.besamuel.diluca@uclouvain.bemauro.pesenti@uclouvain.be
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Abstract

Rips et al. claim that the principles underlying the structure of natural numbers cannot be inferred from interactions with the physical world. However, in their target article they failed to consider an important source of interaction: finger counting. Here, we show that finger counting satisfies all the conditions required for allowing the concept of numbers to emerge from sensorimotor experience through a bottom-up process.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 6 , December 2008 , pp. 642 - 643
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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