The Neurobiological Basis of Numerical Cognition: Decision-Making Processes as a New Line of Inquiry

Numerical cognition plays an important role in our daily life and affects personal and economic success, but there are significant individual differences in the development of math abilities. The accumulative literature indicates that domain-specific and domain-general skills, as well as emotional processes, are the mechanisms underlying numerical cognition and its developmental pathways. In an attempt to bridge the gap between psychology, neuroscience, and education, the chapter reviews the main sources of typical and atypical developments of numerical cognition. There is no consensus on these mechanisms or their relations to math skills. Against this background, the chapter proposes a relatively new line of research to investigate the neurobiological basis of numerical cognition outside the lab: decision-making processes. Decision biases that rely on systematic manipulation of fundamental aspects of number processing can shed light on the genetic, neurobiological, and cognitive markers of numerical processes. The chapter presents comprehensive information on how culturally acquired capacities are learned and organized in the human brain and how these abilities may be impaired.