Typical basic numerical abilities despite congenital absence of sensorimotor finger experience

Fingers help children learning to count but whether this sensorimotor experience is necessary to develop efficient basic numerical abilities is unclear. We tested DC, an adult with a congenital absence of seven fingers, in tasks that required processing numbers (comparison, calculation) or words (rhyme judgement). We compared numerical tasks involving fingers during normal development (addition, subtraction) to tasks less related to fingers (multiplication), and measured classical effects related to shared properties of numbers and fingers (order, base). Response speed and accuracy were within the range of ten control participants matched for age and education, and we found no difference between tasks related and unrelated to finger counting. DC showed typical performance and evidenced classical order and sub-base-five effects. To keep the count of invisible elements, DC relied on his toes while controls used their fingers. Thus, finger sensorimotor experience is not necessary for the development of efficient basic numerical abilities.

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Andres, M., Pesenti, M., & Vannuscorps, G. (2019). Typical basic numerical abilities despite congenital absence of sensorimotor finger experience. 21st Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology, Tenerife, Spain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/169948