Functional magnetic resonance images show which areas of the brain are activated when native Chinese speakers (top row) and native English speakers (bottom row) take on tasks involving symbols (left column) and numbers (right column).
生物谷报道：大连理工大学的唐易元最新实验发现，以汉语为母语和以英语为母语的人们在进行简单的加法运算时，大脑激活的区域并不相同。该研究成果刊登于6月27日出版的《美国科学院院报》（PNAS）上。
研究人员采用大脑成像技术研究不同母语的人在进行诸如“3＋4＝7”一类的简单加法运算时的大脑激活区域。所有参加研究的人都用他们熟悉的阿拉伯数字进行运算。研究发现，计算时，以汉语为母语和以英语为母语受试者的下顶骨皮层区都表现为活跃，这一区域主要负责对数字的表达和读取。但讲英语的人在大脑的语言处理区也表现为活跃，而讲汉语的人却是处理视觉信息的大脑区域活跃。
该项研究的负责人、大连理工大学的唐易元教授介绍说，这可能意味着讲汉语的人和讲英语的人在处理问题的方式上有所不同。可能是由于语言的差异造成了这种计算方式的不同，也可能是由于学习处理数字的方式不同增强了这种差异。他表示，科研人员相信语言在计算中会发挥一定的作用，但文化因素也可能起到一定影响，诸如数学的学习策略和学校教育。使用数字的文化差异可能帮助科学家开发更好的计算策略。尽管使用的语言不同，而运用某种策略可能是最佳的。
理查德·内斯波特是美国密歇根大学“文化与认知项目”的负责人，他表示，这项工作非常重要，因为它告诉我们造成亚洲人和西方人思维方式差别的大脑层次的原因。最后，这项工作将会告诉我们什么时候这种路径开始分化，也可能告诉西方人与亚洲人如何吸取对方思维方式的优点。
内斯波特教授去年曾经发表文章报道亚洲人和北美人欣赏图片时的不同方式。通过研究人眼睛的运动方式结果发现，当面对一张照片时，有欧洲背景的北美学生更加注意场面的前景，而中国来的学生更注重背景和整体效果。他认为，这就能显示出他们会以不同的方式观察世界，从而反映出亚洲人和西方人在推理方面确实存在很大的差异。
该研究项目受到中国国家自然基金委员会和麦克耐特基金会的资助。
Simple arithmetic was easily done by both groups, but they used different parts of the brain, a new study shows.
Researchers used brain imaging to see which parts of the brain were active while people did simple addition problems, such as 3 plus 4 equals 7. All participants were working with Arabic numerals which are used in both cultures.
Both groups engaged a portion of the brain called the inferior parietal cortex, which is involved in quantity representation and reading.
But native English speakers also showed activity in a language processing area of the brain, while native Chinese speakers used a brain region involved in the processing of visual information, according to the report in Tuesday's issue of PNAS
The difference "may mean that Chinese speakers perform problems in a different manner than do English speakers," said lead author Yiyuan Tang of Dalian University of Technology in Dalian, China.
"In part that might represent the difference in language. It could be that the difference in language encourages different styles of computation and this may be enhanced by different methods of learning to deal with numbers," Tang said in an interview via e-mail.
"We believe language plays a role in the calculation," Tang said. But Tang added that cultural factors may also play a part, such as math learning strategies and school training.
These cultural differences using numbers may help scientists develop better strategies for doing calculations, Tang explained: "It could well turn out that certain strategies may be optimal, even when used with a different type of language."
Richard E. Nisbett, co-director of the Culture and Cognition Program at the University of Michigan, said "the work is important because it tells us something about the particular pathways in the brain that underlie some of the differences between Asians and Westerners in thought patterns."
"Ultimately this kind of work will show us when these pathways begin to diverge and how it may be possible to teach Westerners some of the advantages of Asian thought and Asians some of the advantages of Western thought," said Nisbett, who was not part of the research team.
Nisbett last year reported on differences in the way Asians and North Americans view pictures. He tracked eye movements and determined that, when shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene.
"They literally are seeing the world differently," he said.
The new work extends his findings, Nisbett said, "in that it indicates that the reasoning differences that we find between Asians and Westerners are really quite deep."
