A Taxonomy Proposal for Types of Interactions of Language and Place-Value Processing in Multi-Digit Numbers

Research on associations between language and number processing has seen growing interest in the last years – in particular with respect to place-value processing in multi-digit numbers. Recently, Dowker and Nuerk (2016) proposed a taxonomy of linguistic influences on number processing. However, this taxonomy does not address the generality or specificity of linguistic influences across different levels of number processing. In contrast, Nuerk et al. (2015) proposed different levels of place-value processing in multi-digit numbers. However, the authors did not specify if and how linguistic factors influence these levels of place-value processing. The present perspective aims at addressing this conceptual gap by suggesting an integrated taxonomy representing how different linguistic factors may influence different levels of place-value processing. We show that some effects of different linguistic levels have already been observed on different levels of place-value processing. Moreover, while some linguistic influences (e.g., lexical influences) have been studied for all levels of place-value processing, other influences have been studied for only one level or even none. Beyond categorizing existing research, we argue that the explicit consideration of research gaps may inspire new research paradigms complementing the picture of language influences on place-value processing. We conclude by outlining the importance of a differential approach for levels of both linguistic and number processing to evaluate linguistic obstacles and facilitators of different languages and their relevance for numerical development.