New research supports the fiercely controversial theory that all animals, including humans, automatically follow this path for counting, showing that bees arrange their numbers in increasing size from left to right. Western study has found that even before they can count, children start organising rising numbers in what is known as the ‘mental number line’ from left to right. On the other hand, it has been noted that people from cultures that use Arabic writing that reads from right to left go the opposite way.
Martin Giurfa, a professor at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition at Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, said that the issue is still up for debate between those who believe that the mental number line has an innate character and those who claim that it is cultural. Numerous vertebrate species, including primates and newborn humans, have been proven to organise numbers from left to right, according to recent studies.
‘The issue is still up for debate between those who think the mental number line has an innate nature and those who claim it is cultural, ‘said Martin Giurfa, a professor at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition at Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France. New studies have revealed that a variety of vertebrate species, including monkeys and newborn humans, organise numbers from left to right.
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