In the field of cognitive neuroscience, namely in psycholinguistics and mathematical cognition, different theories have been developed to explain the human behavior. In this line of research, we propose that these theories can be conceived as two different forms of processing (Navon, 1977): a global processing that would imply the holistic and unitary analysis of stimuli as a whole (e.g., words, numbers, arithmetic operations) and a local and analytical processing that would involve the analysis of the components of the stimuli (e.g., graphemes, digits of a number, counting of operands). Employing behavioral, electrophysiological, and brain imaging studies we evaluate the possible existence of two shared paths for language and mathematics: 1) a global route associated to the ventral stream of the brain and 2) an analytical route linked to the anterior/posterior dorsal stream.
Some Readings
• Castro, S. & Macizo, P. (2021). All roads lead to Rome: Semantic priming between language and arithmetic. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 7(1), 42-65. https://doi.org/10.5964/jnc.6167
