Finding numbers in the brain
The work
| Authors | Charles Randy Gallistel |
|---|---|
| Editors | |
| Type | misc |
| Year | 2018 |
| Citekey | gallistel2018finding |
Where it appeared
| Published in | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Royal Society |
| Volume | 373 |
| Issue | 1740 |
| Pages | 20170119 |
Identifiers
| DOI | 10.1098/rstb.2017.0119 |
|---|---|
| OpenAlex | W2781888692 |
Access
| Landing page | https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0119 |
|---|
From OpenAlex, which stores abstracts as an index of words and their positions: what is shown is rebuilt from that, and reads fluently whether or not it is what the author wrote.
Abstract
After listing functional constraints on what numbers in the brain must do, I sketch the two's complement fixed-point representation of numbers because it has stood the test of time and because it illustrates the non-obvious ways in which an effective coding scheme may operate. I briefly consider its neurobiological implementation. It is easier to imagine its implementation at the cell-intrinsic molecular level, with thermodynamically stable, volumetrically minimal polynucleotides encoding the remembered numbers, than at the circuit level, with plastic synapses encoding them.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The origins of numerical abilities'.
How it got here
| How it got here | agent via openalex |
|---|---|
| Added | 2026-10-29 08:31 UTC |
| Not denied by | a person 2026-10-29 17:12 UTC |
Cite it as
@misc{gallistel2018finding,
title = {Finding numbers in the brain},
author = {Charles Randy Gallistel},
year = {2018},
journal = {Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences},
publisher = {Royal Society},
volume = {373},
number = {1740},
pages = {20170119},
doi = {10.1098/rstb.2017.0119},
}
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