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How the brain 'approximates' without counting
- hosh 7y agoI wonder what is the implication for this for people on the ASD spectrum.
- curious_fella1 7y agoHow does that affect this?
- amflare 7y agoSo if I understand it correctly, the tl;dr is that we don't like "counting" items in our peripheral vision, so we approximate by mentally tallying how many "snapshots" it takes to see all the items in question?
- gcbw3 7y agoreading articles on scientific paper is such as waste of time. This is describing the introduction of the paper, i'd guess. Since in cogsci the Gestalt effect/theory is widely accepted. What i believe the paper did (but i can't ready it) is to 'reverse engineer' the effect in some part of the brain and came up with an estimate of the number the process will 'estimate' based on your vision focal point into the collection of items. ...but who knows.
- moate 7y agohttps://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/08/13/1819956116z https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/08/13/1819956116z Here's an abstract for you. This link was provided in the article. Reading articles on scientific papers can be helpful if you like...read...and check the links/references. You know, the same way you might want to check the annotations in a scientific paper.
- gcbw3 7y agoThanks! couldn't find it at first.
- kontorlaore 7y agoI think it's more than just estimating the count of objects. We also "approximate" for example a spatial distribution - think about how when running through rough terrain, you instantly know which path to choose to encounter fewer rocks. You are certainly not focusing and counting each individual rock.
- Mirioron 7y agoThe image in the article is really an example of a spatial distribution and fits very well. There's really no way to count which color there is more of in some area of the image, but you can still estimate which one there is more of. I'm not even sure how we could numerically assess that without guesstimation.
- emilfihlman 7y agoEh? That is one of the easiest things you can do with parallel/analog/fpga computing. You simply sum (and this does not mean compute summing, it just happens) the signals that respond in a certain way. It doesn't require much.
- Mirioron 7y agoSure, with computing, but if you didn't have access to such technology?
- emilfihlman 7y agoI mean, just looking at our eyes: it's a field of evenly spaced measurement devices that send a direct signal to out brain. Ie we have a "parallel transmission of pixels". You then just check what colour has the strongest (most) signals. Or do you mean something else? Like how to do that consciously or something and not like, how it's possible?
- jimktrains2 7y agoOur rods and cones are no where near uniformly distributed, even after accounting for the blood vessel running around the retina.
- l3s2d 7y agoTangentially related, there was an interesting Reddit post on this a few years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2ayhkp/if_someone_asks_me_how_many_apples_are_on_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2ayhkp/if_someo...
- Yaggo 7y agoThanks, that's golden!
- Unklejoe 7y agoCool. It kind of reminds me of how problems are often solved in an FPGA. You can only have so much combinatorial logic before you need to break the problem up into multiple stages. The subitizing thing seems like solving the problem in one step with combinatorial logic, whereas counting is like breaking the problem into multiple stages. It makes sense that the brain can only do so much combinatorial computation before the problem needs to be broken up into smaller pieces, incorporating memory.
- jpadif 7y agoThis is among other things is what the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is about. Totally recommended read.
- lern_too_spel 7y agoMany of the studies cited in that book have been toppled by the replication crisis in psychology.
- alanbernstein 7y agoIs there a consolidated source explaining this? Say, if I wanted to read the book, but avoid learning false factoids?
- frankosaurus 7y agoI believe the bit about priming was refuted in some repro attempts. If you're short on time, watch Kahneman's talk at Google, which basically summarizes the first chapter or so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0
- lern_too_spel 7y agoHere are a few examples: https://jasoncollins.blog/2016/06/29/re-reading-kahnemans-thinking-fast-and-slow/ https://jasoncollins.blog/2016/06/29/re-reading-kahnemans-th... I would just avoid factoids from psychology altogether for the next few years while the researchers in that field sort everything out. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/psychologys-replication-crisis-real/576223/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/psycholo... Worse, some of the famous studies aren't merely underpowered or based on nonrepresentative samples (like college kids) or sloppily executed — some famous studies are outright fraudulent. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-exper...
- powersurge360 7y agoI haven't yet read this and won't until after work but I did click through and notice it didn't mention subitizing. Subitizing is pretty cool and it's the name for how you can look at items and instantly know how many there are if it's less than some small number (approximately 5 iirc). Here's a wiki article on it for anyone interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitizing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitizing
- Cerium 7y agoInteresting! I was having a conversation last weekend with a friend when I asked "How many objects can you count without counting, you just know the answer". I didn't know the name for it. For me the answer is three, four if they are in a good arraignment, five is almost always a group of three and two.
- perl4ever 7y agoIf I see a five-pointed star, or a five spoked wheel, I don't have to count to know how many. Probably same goes for six, or a hexagon. Maybe seven.
- leetbulb 7y agoI believe that's recognizing a shape and knowing an attribute.
- kerkeslager 7y agoYeah, I also have thought about this and didn't have a word for it. For me the number is definitely 5 most of the time, 6 if they're in a perfect rectangle. I suspect this is why tally marks[1] are so effective and therefore common. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_marks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_marks
- rahimnathwani 7y agoThe book 'Teach your baby math' suggests that toddlers can learn to recognise how many dots are shown to them, up to at least 200. I haven't fully explored this, but made a simple web app to implement part of the training system in the book. It shows you (or your child) a number of dots, and says the number out loud. https://dots.twilam.com/ https://dots.twilam.com/
- taneq 7y agoVery few humans can directly perceive more than maybe 10 individual items in a group without counting. If you're telling me you can show a toddler a group of 157 dots and have them say "157", I don't believe you. (Maybe they can learn to recognize a particular grouping of dots in a book, but that's a different question.)
- eximius 7y agoI mean, we don't really know the limits of human neuroplasticity. It is certainly a stretch, but I wouldn't rule it out for young children. A crazier example, to me, is the Moken children in Thailand who can see clearly underwater (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160229-the-sea-nomad-children-who-see-like-dolphins http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160229-the-sea-nomad-child...).
- rahimnathwani 7y agoI have read reports online of people succeeding with this method using paper flashcards. However, like you, I wonder: - are these reports true? - even if they are true, has the child just memorised a small section of each particular grouping? Of course, this trick wouldn't work if a parent is using my online tool, as the patterns of dots are pseudo-random, so the same number is unlikely to have the same representation on subsequent views.
- __s 7y agoWould be neat to know what the margin of error is. Is it less than 10%? ie given 157 dots, how difficult is it to estimate 150-170 dots? I think part of this is a lack of practice. I've only counted how many macoroni noodles were in my bowl once
- neilv 7y agoHow does this perception mechanism fit in with how people conceptualize or register numbers? A friend was telling me that when she thinks of a number, a particular visualization of it automatically comes into her mind. From how she described it, I recall thinking it sounded like an accidental approximation of something like a logarithmic scale, but less direct and less precise than it had to be. I knew her pretty well, and, other than this visual, she didn't appear atypical (was social, smart and educated, but no savant superpowers, nor any unusually low limits). I was wondering whether she had a normal human conception of numbers, and somehow just had a little extra introspection on that. Or maybe this visual was an independent mechanism (perhaps learned in childhood). Or maybe she conceived of numbers differently than most people.
- pawelk 7y ago> A friend was telling me that when she thinks of a number, a particular visualization of it automatically comes into her mind. From how she described it, I recall thinking it sounded like an accidental approximation of something like a logarithmic scale Sounds like spacial-sequence synesthesia. When I think of numbers I see them at specific points on a logarithmic(-ish) scale as well. I don't think it gives me any advantage in mental math / counting / estimating, but I can not disable it and try to experience numbers any other way. I have only learned it's not common in my early adulthood, until then I have just assumed that's the way everyone's mind works.
- ricklamers 7y agoI wonder if they take into account the idea that you have some prior reference for expected object counts. I felt like this is an important mechanism at play when I read the classroom example. If I saw a picture of a classroom for 2 seconds and am then asked to estimate the chair count, in my head it goes something like: mean #chairs in classrooms in my experience * fullness of the classroom in picture (e.g. .5-2 range) = count estimate.
- toxik 7y agoBut if I show you a bunch of made up widgets you never saw before, you’d still be able to guess.
- Razengan 7y agoSomething related that I've always been curious/uncomfortable about: Can you count without using a language? Try this: Clap your hands or tap on something an arbitrary number of times. Can you tell how many times you did it without "saying" one, two, three in your head? Even if you pay attention to it, it seems impossible to count without language. At least not a stream of sensory inputs; small clusters of around 10 or fewer things seem easily countable from just looking at a "snapshot."
- sanqui 7y agoI think there's one way to count without using a language: music, or rhythm. When listening to music, I seem to be able to tell how many beats pass away, without actually keeping count without imagining any words in my head.
- anotheryou 7y agoI can't turn it off, but I know I can very well do math without words or numbers in my head. Geometry is the best example, anythig beyond the basics has no good common names and still you can do it in your head. If you slice through a pair of carrots, how many pieces of carrots are there afterwards? (do this simple thing in your head an than read on) I slice them imaginary and than start counting what I'm left with. The part where I go from 2 carrots to 4 carrot parts happens without words. Anyone doing it differently? You of course have to be self-observing enough to say more than "I just know" :).
- n0on3 7y agoThat might as well be a shortcut, as in your brain has done 2*2 so many times that you have an immediate path for that fixed answer... if this is the case there's no actual calculation performed, as in you can't do the same thing for "what if you slice 73 carrots in half"...
- anotheryou 7y agoI'm kinda shure I do it visually :) But yea, get's more difficult with 73. But even there I might determine "visually" that cutting across a row of carrots halfs each of them. So the 2 in 73*2 ist still determined without words.