Workshop,Conference: Space, Time and Number: The Cerebral Basis of Mathematical Intuitions

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

Getting around the world in space, keeping track of time, and quantifying the world around us is an essential part of being human. But how do we accomplish these feats? What are the neural mechanisms that allow us to navigate from home to work, to estimate when a traffic light should turn green, or to compare the number of people in two grocery checkout lines? The conference titled "Space, Time and Number: The Cerebral Basis of Mathematical Intuitions" will explore the state of the art in research on how these quantitative aspects of the world around us are represented and how they might relate to one another. An exciting aspect of this meeting is that the study of number, space, and time is almost unparalleled in its multidisciplinary nature. The topic requires studying human cognitive development, adult cognition, nonhuman animals, behavioral and brain-based approaches and computational modeling and thus brings together researchers from many different departments and fields of expertise. While the meeting will include senior scientists from around the globe, this NSF award will fund American junior scientists (graduate students, postdoctoral training associates, and assistant professors) who would otherwise be unable to attend. The July 2010 meeting, organized by Dr. Stanislas Dehaene and Dr. Elizabeth Brannon (the Principal Investigator), will be the first international meeting of its kind to focus on the neural bases of the representation of time, space, and number. The conference will lead to a series of papers to be published for more widespread dissemination among scientists. Most importantly, by providing a means for junior scholars to attend, this award will support the formation of new research collaborations among this diverse, interdisciplinary group of researchers.