- cross-posted to:
- science@kbin.social
An experiment found that the brain uses one set of neural circuits to identify the numbers 1–4; these circuits are very specific to their own numbers. A separate set of circuits respond to the numbers 5–9; these are less precise, and are activated by adjacent numbers.
For this reason, it is easier to determine when there are four things than to determine there are five things.
- jarfil ( @jarfil@beehaw.org ) 9•1 year ago
This has been part of IQ tests for a while: the vast majority of people can hold to 4 items without a problem, some people struggle with that, some people can hold to 5, 6, 7 or rarely more objects without a problem.
It’s also why phone numbers in most places started as 5 digit numbers, then as “area code + 7”, and now that we use smartphone contact lists to save them, they’ve gone to full “country code + 9 + extension”. There was also an interesting movement opposing the changes: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/61116/why-did-old-phone-numbers-start-letters
- rnd ( @rnd@beehaw.org ) 5•1 year ago
I bet this is also why old-timey phone numbers encoded the first digits with letters. The US had the famous ABC2/DEF3/… system that’s still displayed on most keypads, and the former Soviet Union mapped the first letters of the Russian alphabet (skipping З to avoid confusion with 3)…
- JoBo ( @JoBo@feddit.uk ) 3•1 year ago
I don’t think that’s why, not least because this is a recent discovery. The reason is, presumably, because 26+ keys are difficult to fit on a small but still usable keyboard.
- rnd ( @rnd@beehaw.org ) 3•1 year ago
Think you misunderstand me. Long before texting was a thing, landline phones (with rotary dials!) also had letters associated with digits. This layout was later transferred to keypads, which in turn became the SMS layout.
- JoBo ( @JoBo@feddit.uk ) 1•1 year ago
Yes. And they had letters grouped with the numbers because 26+ keys is a lot to fit on a small but still usable keyboard (or dial, originally).
- StringTheory ( @StringTheory@beehaw.org ) English1•1 year ago
This is cool. I always wondered why I can instantly grasp 1 through 4, but 5 and up become abstract. Thank you for posting this!