RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Creating something out of nothing: Symbolic and non-symbolic representations of numerical zero in the human brain
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2024.01.30.577906
DO 10.1101/2024.01.30.577906
A1 Barnett, Benjy
A1 Fleming, Stephen M.
YR 2024
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2024/01/30/2024.01.30.577906.abstract
AB Representing the quantity zero is considered a unique achievement of abstract human thought. Despite considerable progress in understanding the neural code supporting natural numbers, how numerical zero is encoded in the human brain remains unknown. We find that both non-symbolic empty sets (the absence of dots on a screen) and symbolic zero (“0”) occupy ordinal positions along graded neural number lines within posterior association cortex. Neural representations of zero are partly independent of numerical format, exhibiting distance effects with countable numerosities in the opposing (symbolic or non-symbolic) notation. Our results show that format-invariant neural magnitude codes extend to judgements of numerical zero, and offer support to theoretical accounts in which representations of symbolic zero are grounded in more basic representations of sensory absences.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.