NOAM CHOMSKY鈥橲 theory that the evolution of language provided the portal to all higher thought has taken another knock. A study of people with language difficulties suggests that mathematical skill evolved independently.
A team led by Rosemary Varley at the University of Sheffield, UK, studied three people with extensive damage to the brain鈥檚 left hemisphere, including language areas. Two could not speak at all, and the third only in fragmentary sentences. All were competent calculators, though, able to solve simple subtraction, division and multiplication problems (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0407470102).
The patients could not spot syntax-based changes in meaning, for instance, in reversible sentences such as 鈥渢he boy chased the girl鈥� and 鈥渢he girl chased the boy鈥�. But they had no trouble with a mathematical equivalent such as 7 鈥� 2 and 2 鈥� 7.
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Most experts believe that understanding syntax is essential for processing mathematical statements. 鈥淲e鈥檝e blown that one to pieces, I think,鈥� says Varley.
Psychologist Brian Butterworth at University College London points to evidence that infants do maths long before they can speak. 鈥淭he syntax of numbers is very different from the syntax of language,鈥� he says.
