Technology, not language (Score 1)

I don't feel this study addresses language at all; it only addresses technology. Sure, their language has no number bigger than two; but that just means they can't really *count* higher than two. If you'd gotten an adult english speaker to do the same tasks, but with numbers of objects that were too large to count in the given time, the results would probably be the same. I mean, if someone flashed you a box with 83 batteries in it, would you "remember" later, unless you counted them each time? Recognizing 10 objects is not like recognizing a flower, justice, or murder. It's based on a technology. Of course, though counting technology is based on number, there are more sophisticated ways of using it besides rote one-two-three counting. Since we're a numerate society, we train children to count and map sets to each other and all that fun stuff early on, and drill it into their heads. I remember when I was a kid doing these things, and learning to quickly recognize, say, five objects, by grouping them into 2 and 3 objects, and sort of "imprinting" what those look like in different configurations. I just "know" what five things look like now, the way a chess player "knows" what a winning configuration looks like, or the way a chef "knows" when a chicken is perfectly cooked. I was never trained to recognize 83 batteries, so I can't, any better than people whose lives have no use for counting technology when they see four or five batteries. Number words are just rosary beads, and people in numerate societies use them all the time. These tribesfolk simply don't, just like they don't write, program computers, drive cars, or bake souffles, but you could train them, even in their own language, using existing words for the numbers, and the difference would go away, I bet. Now *that* would be an experiment.