The relationship between numbers and languages

A group of Brazilians can understand the exact numbers without having to name them.

Number 1 is the most lonely number you've ever counted, especially when you don't have the word for it. According to a new study, that is the case of the Pirahas, the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, the tribe has no word for the number 1 or any exact number.

According to a research team led by cognitive scientist Edward Gibson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, until now, scientists have not yet demonstrated the lack of the number 1 expression in any language.

Yet the Pirahans can still identify the number of things that the tester placed in front of them. This new discovery challenges the concept long ago that numbers allow people to think about and recognize the exact number of objects.

According to co-author Michael Frank, 'This result shows that the constant number represents our hidden functions, but instead is a cognitive technique to track the exact size of large groups over time. and in different contexts. '

The new work will be published online June 10 and will appear in the upcoming Cognition.

A Pirahã who participated in the experiment proved their language without digits, even 1.

First, the team examined whether or not Pirahans used counting words, as described in a 2004 work by social linguist Peter Gordon, Columbia University. Gordon concluded that the Brazilian tribe has words for 1, 2 and many. However, Daniel Everett - University of Illinois, a long-time Pirah researcher and co-author of the work, questioned Gordon's results.

The new work explores Everett's disagreement that there is no word for the exact numbers that exist in the Pirahā language. For each of the six volunteers Pirahã, a researcher placed a coiled tube on the table and added coils one by one until 10 rolls. For each number, the language tester Pirahã asked the volunteer 'How much is it?' Four of the volunteers then did this as scientists removed each roll from 10 to 1.

Participants used the same 3 words to give a marked difference when dealing with incremental or descending scrolls. For incremental numbers, these numbers correspond to one, two and many. With descending numbers, the same three words are used to refer from one to six rolls, from four to ten rolls and from seven to ten rolls.

These results show that 3 words of Pirahã indicate general numbers, such as few , some and many . Many other groups of residents, as well as the Pirahã tribe in Gordon's study, are credited with having one, two and many words based on a gradual increase in response. Some groups, like Pirahã, also lack numbers when responding to diminishing numbers.

In the second experiment, 14 adult Pirahã recreated the correct number of objects despite the lack of digits. Participants face a row with 1 to 10 scrolls almost identical to the same number for unmapped bubbles to place in a row. However, these people are also quite clumsy when doing the required monitoring and remembering the exact amount, for example, choose the number of equivalent bubbles after observing an experimenter who put each roll into a can .

Digits are cultural inventions that greatly enhance the ability to track large numbers of objects. So those who speak digitally will find it easy to recall and recreate the number of rolls put into the can.

The scientific opinions are different to what this new work shows about the arithmetic thinking of the Pirahas. Gibson and Frank's team has done a good case of the lack of words that Pirahã points to the exact number, including number one, according to psychologist David Barner, University of California, San Diego.

Barner's own research shows that English-speaking children often don't immediately recognize that single nouns, such as a banana (a banana), represent numbers equal to one banana (one banana). At age 2, children understand that 1 refers to single units but assumes 'a' means 'at least 1' . When they learn other words like some (all) and all (all), children often accept it as an alternative number for 1.

Harvard University psychologist Elizabeth Spelke agrees that Pirahã lacks digits but wonders if they can understand the implication exactly as Frank suggested. Spelke said 'The question here is whether the official number concept, such as number 7, depends on numbers and whether counting by words or not is still open.'

Pirahã volunteers can match the exact number of bubbles with coils using the non-numeric finger rule, such as 'something on your side is equivalent to something on my side.'

Frank knows that possibility. In further studies, he plans to find out whether the Pirahans understand that when an object is added or removed from a group of identical objects, the number is changed. He also wanted to see how the Pirahans used generic quantitative words, such as 'all' and 'nothing' to deal with gradually increasing or decreasing objects.

Gordon agreed with Spelke's point and added that the new data fit his earlier argument that the Pirahas used words equivalent to 1, 2 and many. He thinks that in English from equivalent uses is 'a couple of two' (a couple of). This phrase usually refers to two things but is sometimes used for slightly larger numbers.

In Gibson and Frank's study, the Pirahas understand the common sense of 2 if they hear them right from the 1st. So, in order to roll up gradually, the participants only use 1 to refer to a single roll. most and from 2 to indicate a pair of rolls or sometimes larger numbers. In descending order, words 2 go ahead 1, making them confused and how to use the word change.

Currently, scientists still look forward to Pirahã villagers to conduct further scientific research on the relationship between numbers and languages.