Jessica F Cantlon, Graduate Student

Jessica F Cantlon

Research Summary:
I study the evolution and development of numerical cognition. My current projects investigate 1) whether monkeys and adult humans use the same mental algorithms for making numerical judgments, 2) whether numerical representations are abstract constructs in monkeys and pre-school children, and 3) the cerebral basis of numerical processing in young children using fMRI. Ultimately, I want to know whether 'number' is a primitive, domain-specific cognitive and neural system.

Representative Publications:

  1. Cantlon, J. F., & Brannon, E. M. (in press). Basic math in monkeys and college students. PLoS Biology.
  2. Subiaul, F., Romansky, K., Cantlon. J. F, Klein, T, and Terrace, H. (in press). Cognitive imitation in 2-year-old children: A comparison with rhesus monkeys. Animal Cognition.
  3. Cantlon, J.F., Fink, R., Safford, K. E. & Brannon, E. M. (2007). Heterogeneity impairs numerical matching but not numerical ordering in preschool children. Developmental Science, 10(4), 431-440. [pdf]
  4. Cantlon, J. F. & Brannon, E. M. (2007). Adding up the effects of cultural experience on the brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(1), 1-4. [pdf]
  5. Cantlon, J.F. & Brannon, E. M. (2007). How much does number matter to a monkey?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 33(1), 32-41. [pdf]
  6. Cantlon, J. F. & Brannon, E. M. (2006). The effect of heterogeneity on numerical ordering in rhesus monkeys. Infancy, 9(2), 173-189. [pdf]
  7. Cantlon, J. F., Brannon, E. M., Carter, E. J., and Pelphrey, K. A. (2006). Functional imaging of numerical processing in adults and four-year-old children. PLoS Biology, 4(5). [pdf]
  8. Cantlon, J. F. & Brannon, E. M. (2006). Shared system for ordering small and large numbers in monkeys and humans. Psychological Science, 17(5), 401-406. [pdf]
  9. Brannon, E. M., Cantlon, J. F., & Terrace, H. S. (2006). The role of reference points in ordinal numerical comparisons by Rhesus macaques. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 32(2), 120-134. [pdf]
  10. Needham, A., Cantlon, J. F., & Ormsbee, S. (2006). Infants' use of category information and object attributes when segregating objects at 8.5 months of age. Cognitive Psychology, 53(4), 345-360. [pdf]
  11. Cantlon, J. F. & Brannon, E. M. (2005). Semantic congruity affects numerical judgments similarly in monkeys and humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(45), 16507-16511. [pdf]
  12. Subiaul, F. X., Cantlon, J. F., Holloway, R., & Terrace, H. S. (2004). Cognitive imitation in rhesus macaques. Science, 305(5682), 407-410. [pdf]

Typical Courses Taught::

  • Psy97, Developmental psychology