About this Research Topic
"Man is the measure of all things ... the only criterion for judging the reality is that which is perceived subjectively by the individual through the senses"
Protagora, 491 A.C., Antilogie
Insights into the existence of relationships in the way quantities such as space, time, and number are represented date back to the birth of philosophical thought.
Research in the field of cognitive neuroscience has provided extensive evidence in support of this intuition (see Walsh, 2003 for a complete review). In 1993, Dehaene et al. discovered the SNARC (spatial-numerical association of response codes) effect and suggested that numbers may be internally represented along a spatial dimension, with low numbers on the left of a mental number line, and high numbers on the right. Similar relationships were documented in subsequent research investigating relationship between space and time and time and numbers (for instance see Vicario et al., 2008). However, evidence exist on possible independence in the estimation of these magnitudes (Agrillo et al., 2010).
Thus, we are only begin to understand the complex neuronal mechanisms underlying these interactions in the human brain.
The aim of this Research Topic is providing new experimental evidence to further elucidate cognitive and neuronal mechanisms underlying the existence of relationships between time space an numbers. I would like to encourage researchers to submit original research conducted in humans (through the life span) or non-human model species (including but not limited to behavioral studies, neuroimaging, electrophysiology, genetics and neuroanatomical techniques). The following Frontiers article types are accepted: Original Research Articles, Mini Reviews, Reviews and Perspectives, Hypothesis & Theory, Perspective, General Commentary, Opinion.
References
Agrillo,C., Ranpura,A., & Butterworth,B. (2010). Time and numerosity estimation are independent: behavioural evidence for two different systems using a conflict paradigm. Cognitive Neuroscience, 1(2), 96-101.
Dehaene,S., Bossini,S.,Giraux,P. (1993). The mental representation of parity and number magnitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 122: 371-396.
Vicario, C.M., Pecoraro, P., Turriziani, P., Koch, G., Caltagirone, C., Oliveri, M. (2008). Relativistic compression and expansion of experiential time in the left and right space. PLoS One. Mar 5;3(3):e1716.
Walsh, V. (2003). A theory of magnitude: common cortical metrics of time, space and quantity. Trends Cogn Sci. Nov 7; (11):483-8.
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
