A dissociation of number processing between arabic and korean numbers : A case study

J Korean Neurol Assoc > Volume 15(1); 1997 > Article

Journal of the Korean Neurological Association 1997;15(1): 186-199.

한글 숫자와 아라비아 숫자간의 해리 : 증례연구

김병곤, 김향희, 나덕렬

삼성의료원 신경과, 서울대학교 의대 신경과

A dissociation of number processing between arabic and korean numbers : A case study

Byung-Gon Kim, M.D., Hyanghee Kim, M.D., Duk L Na, M.D.

Department of Neurology, Samsung Medical Center, Department of Neurology, College of Medicine, Seoul National University

Abstract

The cognitive domain of number processing has been known to be separable from that of language. Further, the number processing consists of Arabic and verbal number systems which could be also separable from each other. We report a 49-year-old woman who showed a dissociation between Arabic and Korean verbal numbers. Her impairment in number processing was characterized by the defective comprehension and expression of Korean verbal umbers, without notable defects in those of Arabic numbers. A follow-up examination revealed a further dissociation within the processing of Korean numbers, showing persistent impairment of number comprehension with improvement of number expression. In dealing with numbers with more than two digits, she showed syntactic errors characterized by uttering a string of single digit numbers(I.e., 365:삼육오) rather than stating them as a whole number(삼백육십오). Furthermore, auditory comprehension was also more accurate when the numbers were presented as an array of single digit numbers than a whole number with units. However, these syntactic errors were not observed on an automatic counting task. The evidence of separable representation of Arabic and Korean number system could be drawn from these observations, and therefore we propose the possibility of dual number processing pathways, one for a simple numbering system without semantic mediation and the other for a complex, multidigit numbering with semantic mediation.