Newborns Display Brain Activity Matching Numbers of Sounds and Dots

New Scientist reported that 21 newborns aged between 0 and 3 days showed distinct patterns of brain activity when presented with matching or mismatched quantities of auditory and visual stimuli. The infants wore EEG caps fitted with sensors that recorded electrical activity across the brain while they listened to a 90-second recording of a voice repeating sounds in groups of either four or 12 syllables.

At the same time, the babies viewed a visual stimulus of either four or 12 dots displayed for up to 50 seconds.

Electrical activity decreased in the parietotemporal area when the number of dots matched the number of syllables. Activity rose when the quantities did not match. The parietotemporal area processes and organises sensory information, and the observed decrease aligns with repetition suppression, an adaptive process in which the brain reduces its response to repeated stimuli.

Marco Buiatti at the University of Trento led the research. “Seeing a new number of dots releases the brain from this adaptation effect,” Buiatti said. ” The study was published on bioRxiv with the identifier 10.64898/2026.05.08.723896.

Brian Butterworth at University College London, who was not involved in the work, said extracting numerical information from the environment functions like seeing the world in colour for most people. The findings indicate that this capacity operates independently of language or culture and carries evolutionary value by enabling rapid distinction between quantities of predators or food items.

Buiatti noted that a child’s number sense at age 1 predicts later maths skills.