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The influence of the place-value structure of the Arabic number ...

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OBJECTIVES BEYOND THE SCOPE OF THE INDIVIDUAL STUDIES<br />

On a more general and abstract but less structuring level, <strong>the</strong> main aim <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> current<br />

<strong>the</strong>sis was to provide a comprehensive evaluation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> impact <strong>of</strong> structural <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong><br />

attributes <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Arabic</strong> <strong>number</strong> system on numerical cognition. In <strong>the</strong> general discussion this<br />

goal will be pursued by considering and evaluating two different lines <strong>of</strong> evidence <strong>of</strong>fered by<br />

<strong>the</strong> compilation <strong>of</strong> studies <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> current <strong>the</strong>sis.<br />

<strong>The</strong> first line <strong>of</strong> evidence to be followed will appraise <strong>the</strong> impact <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> results <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />

current <strong>the</strong>sis as regards <strong>the</strong> generalizability <strong>of</strong> decomposed processing <strong>of</strong> two-digit <strong>number</strong><br />

magnitude as general processing characteristic in multi-digit <strong>number</strong> processing. <strong>The</strong>refore,<br />

particular interest was paid to new observations extend existing evidence [i] for <strong>the</strong> nature <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>the</strong> mental <strong>number</strong> line in terms <strong>of</strong> external vs. internal <strong>number</strong> magnitude representation and<br />

<strong>the</strong>ir impairments by hemi-spatial neglect (see Study 1 and 6), [ii] by evidence for<br />

decomposed processing from o<strong>the</strong>r basic numerical tasks such as <strong>the</strong> <strong>number</strong> line estimation<br />

task (see Study 3) as well as basic arithmetic procedures such as addition (see Studies 2 and<br />

4), [iii] by evaluating longitudinal developmental <strong>influence</strong>s <strong>of</strong> children’s early <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong><br />

knowledge, which have been investigated exclusively for <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> <strong>number</strong> magnitude<br />

representations so far (see Studies 3 and 4), [iv] by investigating processing specificities <strong>of</strong><br />

decomposed processing <strong>of</strong> two-digit <strong>number</strong>s in respect <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir neural correlates as well as its<br />

computational validity as compared to o<strong>the</strong>r models <strong>of</strong> <strong>number</strong> magnitude representation (see<br />

Studies 5 and 7).<br />

<strong>The</strong> second line <strong>of</strong> evidence considered in <strong>the</strong> general discussion will evaluate in what<br />

way <strong>the</strong> results <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> individual study not only provide evidence for a general processing<br />

principle driven by <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> properties <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Arabic</strong> <strong>number</strong> system. Instead, evidence on<br />

<strong>the</strong> relevance <strong>of</strong> individual (cf. Study 4) and cultural differences (cf. Study 3) in <strong>the</strong> <strong>influence</strong><br />

<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> <strong>structure</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Arabic</strong> <strong>number</strong> system on numerical cognition and its<br />

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