Convergence of pitch and number word magnitude coding in the intraparietal cortex

The human capability of abstraction enables us to appreciate and process completely different impressions and stimuli. One approach to an abstract association system came from Walsh (Theory of Magnitude, ATOM, 2003). He postulated, that time, space, and quantity are processed by a generalized magnitude system which is assumed to be located in the inferior parietal cortex. A strong connection between space and number has often been verified (e.g., SNARC effect, Dehaene et al., 1993). Recently, a similar connection has been proposed for pitch discrimination (SMARC effect, lower/higher musical judgements, Rusconi et al., 2005). The aim of the current fMRI study was to investigate spatial encoding of pitch and number, and to examine whether convergent brain areas could be found within the intraparietal cortex. Participants were auditorily presented with number words and tones, for which they had to make comparative judgments to a referent in memory (e.g., smaller/larger than five resp. lower/higher than C4). The degree of compatibility was influenced by response assignment (i.e., compatible: index finger for smaller, middle finger for larger; incompatible: reverse mapping). Behavioural data were analyzed with a 4-way ANOVA. The data showed equivalent stimulus-response compatibility and distance effects for numbers and tones. Functional MRI data were analyzed with SPM2. The most interesting finding for fMRI activation data was a shared inferior parietal activation for comparative judgments on number and pitch as revealed by a conjunction analysis. Our findings are in support of ATOM, suggesting a common metric for magnitude coding in the intraparietal cortex.

Grantor dc:publisher

Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University

Year dc:date

2009

Author dc:creator

• Winkler, Liza Yamila

Contributors dc:contributor

• Willmes-von Hinckeldey, Klaus

• info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/610
• Ton <Akustik>
• Zahl
• Funktionelle NMR-Tomographie
• NMR-Tomographie
• Großhirnrinde
• Hörrinde
• Medizin
• parietal Kortex
• Größenvergleichsaufgabe
• number word
• pitch
• magnitude
• semantic

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-CONV-113581%22

OAI record oai:identifier

https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/oai2d?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai%3Apublications.rwth-aachen.de%3A51271