Numbers and Brains - Numberphile

Your brain seems to treat numbers and words very differently (even if the number is written as a word!). So says cognitive neuropsychologist Brian Butterworth.
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Professor Brian Butterworth is based at University College London.

NUMBERPHILE

Videos by Brady Haran

[OddtwangofDork]

I was wondering the same thing. From the later part of the video, it's almost like there's a list of what's an actual word and then a link to meanings, pronunciations etc, with numbers in a separate location - so the question might be whether the second language(s) pointers went direct to the numeric store or to the first language's word of the same meaning. Fascinating.

[DahBlindNinja]

I very much enjoy the videos about how people think about numbers. Please make more.

[jillianwalker]

The videos where they talk about the psychological aspect of numbers are the best

[Marios]

He has such a relaxing voice! I could listen to him all day :D

[numberphile]

Well good on you for watching all the way trough! :)

[Justpooinabush]

This guy has the best last name ever.

Thank you for the video, Dr Butterworth.

[reisanibal]

221 x 223 = 49, 283
The numbers come to the screen exactly at 2:21 and 2:23. Brilliant! Nothing is random in numberphile videos :)

[LVo]

couldn't the patient at the first part start counting in base 5?

[SephYouTube]

Very thought provoking-Probably one of my favourite numberphile videos!

[SuliGzus]

Lol I've got Left-HemiParesis.
It always fascinates me when I'm talking to people and I use "big" words very often...
And I'm often asked about the meanings of these words - and more often than not. I have no idea what the words mean.

But when I look these words up, it turns out that they were some of the best words to be used in the context I used them in.

Sometimes - they are synonyms of the words which "normal people"(people call me a robot) would use - and less often, they are antonyms.

[bdkmilne]

From what I understand, the neurological patient understood what 'gave' and 'flat' meant when they were spoken to him but if they were written down or spelled out he had problems. So the letters F-L-A-T would not be associated with the spoken word 'flat' or the meaning which he knew.

[claytonhanson]

I believe that the reason the words for numbers, such as "eight" and "two" are able to be remembered and processed are because even though they are words, the represent a sort of numerical symbol. Such as "pie" (I don't have a pie symbol on my keyboard) or any of the Greek symbols. It's like seeing c for the speed of light. Yes, c is a letter, but it's the representation for a numerical value.

[Namorat]

Despite the fact that I am not a real mathematics fan and enjoy numbers only a bit more, I am glad to be subscribed to this channel.
It is simply fascinating what I learn here, which goes beyond numbers in my eyes :)

[AutodidacticPhd]

I'm not completely sure what you're getting at, but to me it implies that reading language tasks involve many different centers in the brain. One to recognize the writing symbols, one to recognize context, one that connects to sound, etc... but that meaning is actually a diverse system that reaches all over the brain. At a guess, if you damaged the part of the brain that processes faces, and you might also lose the ability to recognize words like "eye" or "nose" as well.

[Endureth]

I had a brain aneurysm erupt in 96. I could talk fine but it took a long time before I was able to count and understand numbers again. I remember people would ask me how old I was and I would claim to be hundreds of years old and I really believed it to be true. It took me a long while to overcome it.

[Jack]

Great video! It is interesting how when parts of the brain are damaged one of the biggest problems is the blocking of communication between different parts of the brain. Whenever we discover how to recover those pathways or forge new pathways for communication I think it will be a very exciting time for neuroscience.

[MGord]

As an English Language student, with an interest in language acquisition, I find these cases fascinating

[unaliveeveryonenow]

I think that actual concepts could be scattered through the brain but the connections are gathered together. For example "Give = word" could be a bunch of neurons going left, but "Give = present (act of homage)" could go right, and "transfer of mass (motion)" go down. So the patient in the video could still have stored the other to meanings but they were completely separated from the letters and sound "Give". And the connection could not be easily restored because of the location of damage.

[TheRealDamnSyko]

What would be fascinating to study is if a case came up where someone had a damaged Wernicke's and/or Broca's areas, but their numerical centres were intact, and the patient was familiar with different number systems (e.g. hexadecimal, binary, octal), complex arithmetic (algebra, complex numbers, matrices, calculus, etc.) and/or number words in different languages, to see if this is still the case.

[HIRVIism]

In computer programming, you must give a type to every variable you create. So numbers could be stored as doubles(=decimals) and words as strings.