Research On The Mechanism Of Approximate Number System

Approximate number system is a cognitive processing mechanism that quickly obtains the number magnitude of stimuli.In the research of approximate number system mechanism,a controversial issue is whether the approximate number processing will be affected by other visual factors such as area,density,field area.For this question,number sense theory,sense of magnitude theory and inhibitory control theory hold different views.The number sense theory believes that both humans and animals have an innate sense of number.The approximate quantitative processing is only the processing of stimulus quantity information and is not affected by non-quantitative information;the sense of magnitude theory believes that the individual approximate number processing is the result of comprehensively extracting stimulus quantity information and non-quantitative information.Inhibition control theory believes that individuals tend to obtain stimulus quantity information in approximate quantity processing and suppress the response that based on non-quantitative information especially when it is inconsistent with number.Previous studies have found that,when the stimulus is presented instantaneously(about 50 milliseconds),the individual can also obtain the number of stimuli with low accuracy.With the increase of presentation time,the accumulation of fixation points is Helps to improve the accuracy of approximate quantity processing:the more dot matrix stimuli covered by the fixation point,the higher the accuracy of approximate number estimation or comparison,however,it remains a question whether the process of fixation accumulation is the accumulation of the quantity of stimuli,it might be the accumulation of other continuous magnitudes.To answer this question can well verify the above three theories.Therefore,this study tests the influence of quantity information and non-quantitative information on the approximate number estimation results from the two states of no gaze accumulation and gaze accumulation,respectively,by setting interference tasks and adjusting the presentation time of stimuli,and draws the following conclusions:(1)Regardless of whether there is accumulation of gaze,field area(FA)will affect the accuracy coefficient(AC),but does not affect the precision or stability(VC)of the approximate number estimate.The behavior data is that the greater the field area,The higher the accuracy of the number estimation,the more the number of fixation points,and the shorter the average fixation time.(2)There is an accumulation of the number of stimuli in the process of gaze accumulation.Compared with the sound discrimination interference task,the sound counting interference task will cause continuous interference on the accuracy and stability of the number estimation at the same time,resulting in a decrease in accuracy and stability.(3)In the state of accumulation of gaze,as the presentation time of stimuli increases,the accumulation of the quantity information of stimuli will actually improve the accuracy coefficient(AC)and variability coefficient(VC)of the approximate number estimation.(4)This study has not yet found the correlation between approximate number system and inhibitory control ability,and cannot support the inhibitory control theory yet,which needs to be further demonstrated by follow-up research.