Cultural variation in numeration systems and their mapping onto the mental number line

Abstract

The ability to exactly assess large numbers hinges on cultural tools such as counting sequences and thus offers a great opportunity to study how culture interacts with cognition. To obtain a more comprehensive picture of the cultural variance in number representation, this article argues for the inclusion of cross-linguistic analyses. It scrutinizes the specific counting systems of Polynesian and Micronesian languages that were once derived from an abstract and regular system by extension in three dimensions. The linguistic origins, cognitive properties, and cultural context of these specific counting systems are analyzed, and their implications for the nature of a (putative) mental number line are discussed. © The Author(s) 2011.