Subitizing, coined in 1949 by E.L. Kaufman et al. refers to the rapid, accurate, and confident judgments of number

Number

A number is a mathematical object used to count and measure. In mathematics, the definition of number has been extended over the years to include such numbers as zero, negative numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers....

 performed for small numbers of items. The term is derived from the Latin adjective subitus (meaning "sudden") and captures a feeling of immediately knowing how many items lie within the visual scene, when the number of items present falls within the subitizing range. Number judgments for larger set-sizes were referred to either as counting

Counting

Counting is the action of finding the number of elements of a finite set of objects. The traditional way of counting consists of continually increasing a counter by a unit for every element of the set, in some order, while marking those elements to avoid visiting the same element more than once,...

 or estimating, depending on the number of elements present within the display, and the time given to observers in which to respond (i.e., estimation occurs if insufficient time is available for observers to accurately count all the items present).

The accuracy, speed, and confidence with which observers make judgments of the number of items are critically dependent on the number of elements to be enumerated. Judgments made for displays composed of around one to four items are rapid, accurate and confident. However, as the number of items to be enumerated increases beyond this amount, judgments are made with decreasing accuracy and confidence. In addition, response times rise in a dramatic fashion, with an extra 250–350 ms added for each additional item within the display beyond about four.

While the increase in response time for each additional element within a display is relatively large outside the subitizing range (i.e., 250–350 ms per item), there is still a significant, albeit smaller, increase within the subitizing range, for each additional element within the display (i.e., 40–100 ms per item). A similar pattern of reaction times is found in young children, although with steeper slopes for both the subitizing range and the enumeration range. This suggests there is no span of apprehension as such, if this is defined as the number of items which can be immediately apprehended by cognitive processes, since there is an extra cost associated with each additional item enumerated. However, the relative difference in costs associated with enumerating items within the subitizing range are small, whether measured in terms of accuracy, confidence, or speed of response. Furthermore, the values of all measures appear to differ markedly inside and outside the subitizing range. So, while there may be no span of apprehension, there appear to be real differences in the ways in which a small number of elements is processed by the visual system (i.e., approximately less than four items), compared with larger numbers of elements (i.e., approximately more than four items). Recent findings demonstrated that subitizing and counting are not restricted to visual perception, but also extend to tactile perception (when observers had to name the number of stimulated fingertips).

Enumerating afterimages

As the derivation of the term "subitizing" suggests, the feeling associated with making a number judgment within the subitizing range is one of immediately being aware of the displayed elements. When the number of objects presented exceeds the subitizing range, this feeling is lost, and observers commonly report an impression of shifting their viewpoint around the display, until all the elements presented have been counted. The ability of observers to count the number of items within a display can be limited, either by the rapid presentation and subsequent masking

Masking

In art, craft, and engineering, masking is the use of materials to protect areas from change, or to focus change on other areas.Masking can describe either the techniques and materials used to control the development of a work of art by protecting a desired area from change; or a phenomenon that ...

 of items, or by requiring observers to respond quickly. Both procedures have little, if any, effect on enumeration within the subitizing range. These techniques may restrict the ability of observers to count items by limiting the degree to which observers can shift their "zone of attention" successively to different elements within the display.

Atkinson, Campbell, and Francis demonstrated that visual afterimages could be employed in order to achieve similar results. Using a flashgun to illuminate a line of white disks, they were able to generate intense afterimages in dark-adapted observers. Observers were required to verbally report how many disks had been presented, both at 10 s and at 60 s after the flashgun exposure. Observers reported being able to see all the disks presented for at least 10 s, and being able to perceive at least some of the disks after 60 s. Despite a long period of time to enumerate the number of disks presented when the number of disks presented fell outside the subitizing range (i.e., 5–12 disks), observers made consistent enumeration errors in both the 10 s and 60 s conditions. In contrast, no errors occurred within the subitizing range (i.e., 1–4 disks), in either the 10 s or 60 s conditions. This result was replicated by Simon and Vaishnavi.

Brain structures involved in subitizing and counting

The work on the enumeration

Enumeration

In mathematics and theoretical computer science, the broadest and most abstract definition of an enumeration of a set is an exact listing of all of its elements . The restrictions imposed on the type of list used depend on the branch of mathematics and the context in which one is working...

 of afterimages supports the view that different cognitive processes operate for the enumeration of elements inside and outside the subitizing range, and as such raises the possibility that subitizing and counting involve different brain circuits. However, functional imaging

Functional imaging

Functional imaging , is a method of detecting or measuring changes in metabolism, blood flow, regional chemical composition, and absorption....

 research has been interpreted both to support different and shared processes.

Balint's syndrome

Clinical evidence supporting the view that subitizing and counting may involve functionally and anatomically distinct brain areas comes from patients with simultanagnosia

Simultanagnosia

Simultanagnosia is a rare neurological disorder characterized by the inability of an individual to perceive more than a single object at a time. It is one of three major components of Bálint’s syndrome, an uncommon and incompletely understood variety of severe neuropsychological impairments...

, one of the key components of Balint's syndrome

Balint's syndrome

Bálint's syndrome is an uncommon and incompletely understood triad of severe neuropsychological impairments: inability to perceive the visual field as a whole , difficulty in fixating the eyes , and inability to move the hand to a specific object by using vision...

. Patients with this disorder suffer from an inability to perceive visual scenes properly, being unable to localize objects in space, either by looking at the objects, pointing to them, or by verbally reporting their position. Despite these dramatic symptoms, such patients are able to correctly recognize individual objects. Crucially, people with simultanagnosia are unable to enumerate objects outside the subitizing range, either failing to count certain objects, or alternatively counting the same object several times.

However, people with simultanagnosia have no difficulty enumerating objects within the subitizing range. The disorder is associated with bilateral damage to the parietal lobe

Parietal lobe

The parietal lobe is a part of the Brain positioned above the occipital lobe and behind the frontal lobe.The parietal lobe integrates sensory information from different modalities, particularly determining spatial sense and navigation. For example, it comprises somatosensory cortex and the...

, an area of the brain linked with spatial shifts of attention. These neuropsychological results are consistent with the view that the process of counting, but not that of subitizing, requires active shifts of attention. However, recent research has questioned this conclusion by finding that attention also effects subitizing.

Imaging enumeration

A further source of research upon the neural processes of subitizing compared to counting comes from positron emission tomography

Positron emission tomography

Positron emission tomography is nuclear medicine imaging technique that produces a three-dimensional image or picture of functional processes in the body. The system detects pairs of gamma rays emitted indirectly by a positron-emitting radionuclide , which is introduced into the body on a...

 (PET) research upon normal observers. Such research compares the brain activity associated with enumeration processes inside (i.e., 1–4 items) for subitizing, and outside (i.e., 5–8 items) for counting.

Such research finds that within the subitizing and counting range activation occurs bilaterally in the occipital extrastriate cortex and superior parietal lobe/intraparietal sulcus. This has been interpreted as evidence that shared processes are involved. However, the existence of further activations during counting in the right inferior frontal regions, and the anterior cingulate have been interpreted as suggesting the existence of distinct processes during counting related to the activation of regions involved in the shifting of attention.

Mathematical applications

Historically, many objects, devices and systems have attempted to use subitizing to identify full or partial quantities. In the twentieth century, mathematics educators started to adopt some of these systems, as reviewed in examples below, but often switched to more abstract color coding to represent quantities up to ten.

In the nineties, babies three weeks old were shown to differentiate between 1-3 objects, that is, to subitize. A more recent meta-study summarizing five different studies concluded that infants are born with an innate ability to differentiate quantities within a small range, which increases over time. By the age of seven that ability increases to 4-7 objects. Some practitioners claim that with training, children are capable of subitizing 15+ objects correctly

Abacus

The hypothesized use of yupana

Yupana

The yupana is a device used by the Incas, presumably as a type of calculator. Though some researchers have hypothesized how this implement might function like an abacus, others are less certain that it was used for this purpose...

, an Inca counting system, placed up to five counters in connected trays for calculations.

In each place value, the Chinese abacus

Abacus

The abacus, also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool used primarily in parts of Asia for performing arithmetic processes. Today, abaci are often constructed as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of...

 uses four or five beads to represent units, which are subitized, and one or two separate beads, which symbolize fives. This allows multi-digit operations such as carrying and borrowing to occur without subitizing beyond five.

European abacuses use ten beads in each register, but usually separate them into fives by color.

Dice and cards

Dice

Dice

A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...

, playing cards and other gaming devices traditionally split quantities into subitizable groups with recognizable patterns.

Twentieth century teaching tools

The idea of instant recognition of quantities has been adopted by several pedagogical systems, such as Montessori, Cuisenaire and Dienes

Dienes

Dienes may mean:* People: see Dienes for a list of people with the surname Dienes.* Dienes are a type of chemical compound....

. However, these systems only partially use subitizing, attempting to make all quantities from 1 to 10 instantly recognizable. To achieve it, they code quantities by color and length of rods or bead strings representing them. Recognizing such visual or tactile representations and associating quantities with them involves different mental operations from subitizing.