Test subjects were shown images with either an amount of something—in this case a bunch of dots—or a numeral like
Once again, scientists are trying to read your mind. Specifically, they are using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to see what areas of the brain people use to process numbers, and even to determine what number a person just viewed.
2, 4, or 6. Scientists suspected that our brains use overlapping areas to process quantities and their symbolic representations, however the findings suggest that people process the fundamental idea of a quantity differently from the way they process a symbol representing that quantity [Science News].
Scientists already knew that the the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain are involved in number processing. Monitoring those areas, researchers saw distinct activity patterns associated with specific numerals and dot quantities, and used the info to determine what number the test subjects had ...
