SCIENCE FEATURE

GUT
MATH

BACKGROUND
Numerical cognition is the study of how we learn and understand AUDIO
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numbers and math. Scientists from many fields, including psychology,

education, and neuroscience, work together to research this topic. ANNOTATE
Interest in numerical cognition has increased in recent years. One reason
is that educators are interested in using research related to this area of
study to inform the way math is taught in schools.

1 Sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch . . . math?

2 You might love math or hate it. Regardless, scientists say, we are Use a digital dictionary or indicate
all born with a knack for mathematics. another strategy that you used to
determine meaning.
3 This is not to say that we’re all secret computational geniuses. A
approximate
baby chewing on her toes is not demonstrating in sign language
(uh PROK suh mayt) v.
that 12 squared is 144. What does come naturally, though, is the MEANING:
ability to approximate. If our ancestors hadn’t been able to judge

Gut Math  521

 at a glance whether they were outnumbered by mastodons,1 or
which bush held the most berries, we might not be around today.
Every time you leave your algebra class and scan the cafeteria for
a table that will fit all of your friends, you’re exercising the ancient
estimation center in your brain.
4 Stanislas Dehaene was the first researcher to show that this part
of the brain exists. In 1989, he met a man called Mr. N who had
suffered a serious brain injury. In addition to other problems, Mr.
N had acalculia.2 He couldn’t recognize the number 5, or add 2
and 2. But Mr. N still knew a few things. For example, he knew
that 8 is bigger than 7, and that there are “about 350 days” in a
year and “about 50 minutes” in an hour.
5 Dehaene dubbed Mr. N “the Approximate Man” and drew an
important conclusion from his case: there must be two separate
mathematical areas in our brains. One of these areas is responsible
for the math we learn in school; this is what Mr. N damaged. The
other area doesn’t worry too much about specific numbers, but
judges approximate amounts. Since this area was undamaged, Mr.
N became the Approximate Man (Dehaene 177–180).
6 So what does the brain’s estimation center do for the rest of us?
In the hopes of answering this question, Harvard University
researcher Elizabeth Spelke has spent a lot of time posing math
problems to preschoolers. Like the Approximate Man,
preschoolers are bad at formal math. When Spelke asks 5-year-
olds to solve a problem like 21 + 30, they can’t do it—no surprise
there. But Spelke has also asked 5-year-olds questions such as,
“Sarah has 21 candles and gets 30 more. John has 34 candles. Who
has more candles?” It turns out preschoolers are great at solving
questions like that. Before they’ve learned how to do math with
numerals and symbols, their brains’ approximation centers are
already hard at work, making them pros at estimation (Lipton and
Spelke 980–981).
7 After we learn symbolic math, do we still have any use for our
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inborn math sense? Does it matter? Justin Halberda and his
colleagues at Johns Hopkins University think it does. They
challenged a group of 14-year-olds with an approximation test:
The kids stared at a computer screen and saw groups of yellow
and blue dots flash by, too quickly to count. Then they had to say
whether there had been more blue dots or yellow dots. The
researchers found that kids’ math sense varied widely. Most were
able to answer correctly when there were, say, 25 yellow dots and
10 blue ones. When the groups were closer in size, say 11 yellow
dots and 10 blue ones, fewer kids answered correctly (Stein).

1. mastodon  (MAS tuh don) n. giant elephant-like mammal that went extinct during the
Pleistocene epoch.
2. acalculia  (ay kal KYOO lee uh) n. inability or the loss of ability to do math.

522  UNIT 4 • HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

 APPROXIMATION TEST
This image shows what the Johns Hopkins University math
approximation text looks like. If this were the real thing, you'd
have only 0.2 seconds to answer the question.

 More yellows or
more blues?

 More blues or
more yellows?
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8 The big surprise in this study came when the researchers

compared the kids’ approximation test scores to their scores on
standardized math tests throughout their school years. They
found that kids who did better on the flashing dot test had better
standardized test scores and vice versa (Stein). It seems that, far
from being irrelevant, your math sense might predict your ability
at formal math.
9 If this is the case, then does all our mathematical ability boil
down to genetics? Is it a foregone conclusion whether someone
will be a mathlete or a math dropout? Halberda doesn’t think so.
“There are many factors that might affect a person’s performance
in school mathematics,” he says.

Gut Math  523

 ANIMAL ARITHMETIC
For animals, knowing numbers may be the
difference between being full or being hungry,
being alive or being, well, not alive. If you can
count or estimate quantities, you can figure out
which tree has the most fruits, which watering
hole has the fewest predators, and even how to
find your hideout among all the tunnels in your
burrow. Many scientists now think that lots of
different animals, from pigeons and monkeys to
rats and salamanders, have an innate number
sense that helps them tell less from more and
maybe even perform some more impressive
feats.
Rats, for example, can learn to press a lever a
certain number of times to get a treat—though
they sometimes overshoot, maybe just to play it
safe. Birds have been trained to pick up just the
fifth seed in a series. Many animals, including
pigeons, can tell a smaller pile from a bigger
one. Even the humble salamander looked longer
(and longingly?) at the test tube that contained
more fruit flies.
In one of the few number studies with wild
animals, rhesus monkeys were shown a pile of
lemons. The researchers put the lemons behind
a screen, then showed the monkeys another pile
of lemons and put that pile behind the screen as
well. When they lifted the screen to show the
expected number of lemons, the monkeys barely
looked, but when the pile had fewer or more
lemons than there should have been, the
monkeys were seemingly surprised and stared at
the lemons for longer (Cantlon and Brannon
55–59). This showed an understanding of
addition similar to what Elizabeth Spelke found
in preschoolers.
Monkeys adding lemons is a great party trick,
but some researchers still have questions. What
are the limits of animal arithmetic? And how are
these skills really used in the wild?

Use a digital dictionary or indicate
another strategy yo used that
helped you determine meaning.
innate (ihn NAYT) adj.
MEANING:
11
10 Stanislas Dehaene, who has become a leading researcher of
number sense (or “numerical cognition”)3 since meeting the
Approximate Man, agrees with Halberda. He believes that the
way math is taught in schools is just as important as our inherent
number sense. In fact, he thinks math education could be a lot
better if teachers took their students’ brain structure into
account.
“I believe that there is one brain organization,” Dehaene says.
“We see it in babies, we see it in adults.” For example, he says that
when we think of numbers, we automatically place them on a
number line in our brains. When two numbers are far apart on the
number line, it’s easy for us to tell which is bigger. But when the
numbers are closer together—say, 7 and 8—everyone has to think © Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

a little harder to find the answer.

12 Our natural number sense makes addition easy, as
demonstrated by Spelke’s preschoolers. Multiplication, on the
other hand, is hard. Dehaene calls it an “unnatural practice.”
Instead of using our number sense to learn multiplication facts,
we store the facts in our brain as groups of words (“Six times
six is thirty-six!”) with no logic behind them. As a result, even
adults struggle to remember 7 x 8. Dehaene asks why children
have to learn multiplication tables in the first place. Calculators
are readily available, especially in this age of smartphones. So
why bother?
3. numerical cognition  (noo MEHR ih kuhl kog NISH uhn) n. the act or process of thinking
about numbers.

524  UNIT 4 • HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

 13 The English words for numbers, Dehaene says, are also
unnatural. It’s hard for kids to remember the words for 11 through
19, for example, which don’t fit into an easy pattern. In Chinese,
he says, number words follow a much clearer pattern. This may be
why one experiment found that the average Chinese four-year-old
can count to 40, while a four-year-old American might have
trouble getting to 15. The math sense is there; the words are
getting in the way (Geary et al. 2023–2026).
14 It’s unlikely that we’ll invent new English number words any
time soon. But as scientists continue to learn how our brains are
wired for math, maybe we’ll find other ways for teachers to tap
into students’ innate number sense and make formal math more
intuitive. In the meantime, even if you are a struggling math Use a digital dictionary or indicate
student, rest assured that you have at least as much mathematical another strategy you used that
helped you determine meaning.
ability as a salamander (see “Animal Arithmetic”). And there are
intuitive (in TOO ih
always calculators. tihv)  adj.
MEANING:

Works Cited
Cantlon, J. F., and E. M. Brannon. “Animal Arithmetic.” Encyclopedia of
Animal Behavior, edited by N. Clayton, Elsevier Press, 2010, pp. 55–62.
Dehaene, Stanislas. The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates
Mathematics. Oxford UP, 1997.
Geary, David C., et al. “Development of Arithmetical Competencies in
Chinese and American Children: Influence of Age, Language, and
Schooling.” Child Development, vol. 67, no. 5, Oct. 1996, pp.
2022–2044.
Lipton, Jennifer S., and Elizabeth S. Spelke. “Preschool Children’s Mapping
of Number Words to Nonsymbolic Numerosities.” Child Development,
vol. 76, no. 5, Sept./Oct. 2005, pp. 978–988.
Stein, Rob. “How One’s ‘Number Sense’ Helps with Mathematics.”
Washington Post, 8 Sept. 2008, p. A5.
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Gut Math  525

BUILD INSIGHT

NOTEBOOK

Response
Work on your own to
1. Personal Connections  Describe your experiences with "gut math."
answer the questions
in your notebook.
Use text evidence
to support your
responses.
Comprehension
2. Reading Check  (a) Who was the Approximate Man and why was he
important? (b) How does having number sense benefit animals?
(c) What is the connection between number sense and formal math?

3. Strategy: Make Predictions  Note at least one prediction you made

based on structure and text features. Were you able to confirm this
prediction, or did you have to correct it? Explain.

WORKING
AS A GROUP
Discuss your responses
to the Analysis and Analysis and Discussion
Discussion questions 4. Analyze  What is the controlling idea, or main message, of this article?
with your group.
Provide at least two examples of details and evidence in the article that
• Note agreements and support this idea.
disagreements.
• Summarize insights.
5. (a) Interpret  Why does Stanislas Dehaene believe that math education
• Consider changes of
opinion.
should take students’ brain structure into consideration? (b) Analyze
What evidence does he provide to support this view? (c) Take a
If necessary, revise
your original answers to
Position  Do you agree or disagree with Dehaene’s view? Explain, citing
reflect what you learn text evidence.
from your discussion.
6. (a) Evaluate  What is the value of including the results of scientific
studies in the article? (b) Extend  What does your answer suggest
about the importance of using strong text evidence in general?
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7. Get Ready for Close Reading  Choose a passage from the text that
you find especially interesting or important. You’ll discuss the passage
with your group during Close-Read activities.

TEKS EQ
5.C.  Make, correct, or confirm Notes How do we know what we know?
predictions using text features,
characteristics of genre, and What have you learned about human intelligence from this article? Go to
structures. your Essential Question Notes, and record your observations and thoughts
6.A.  Describe personal connections about “Gut Math.”
to a variety of sources, including self-
selected texts.
6.C.  Use text evidence to support an
appropriate response.

526  UNIT 4 • HUMAN INTELLIGENCE