Commentary on "Is there an innate sense of number in the brain?" by Lorenzi, Kobylkov, and Vallortigara.

Abstract

Is there an innate sense of number? Lorenzi et al. (2025) argue that the ability to extract numerical information from the environment is vital for a wide range of species, suggesting "a likely common origin". Studies in different species show that the neural mechanism for doing this-numerosity-selective neurons-can be found in animals with no opportunity to learn. This leaves open important questions: How do numerosity-selective neurons code for numerosities? Is the code the same in different species? How do the neurons participate in arithmetical operations?