Linguistic quantifiers and numerosity in autism

behavioral evidence regarding declarative memory compensation

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58980/eiaerh.v12i00.459

Keywords:

Autism Spectrum Disorder, Numerosity, Quantifiers, Declarative memory, Psycholinguistics

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which the quantifiers todos (all), alguns (some), muitos (many), and poucos (few) modulated numerosity judgments in autistic and non-autistic children and adolescents and assessed their compatibility with the declarative memory compensation hypothesis. The study is motivated by the scarcity of research integrating linguistic quantification, numerical cognition in autism, and declarative/procedural memory. In a forced-choice task, auditory sentences were paired with nonsymbolic visual sets. Quantifier presence increased accuracy from 51.0% to 78.9% in the non-autistic group and from 50.7% to 65.4% in the autistic group. Only quantifier type accounted for variation in latency. Todos and muitos yielded higher accuracy, whereas poucos and alguns yielded lower accuracy. The gain was about 1.9 times greater in the non-autistic group, providing no support for the strong compensation hypothesis. The findings indicate linguistic modulation of numerosity judgments, without evidence of declarative compensation in the autistic group.

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Author Biographies

  • Cleber Tourinho, Federal University of Paraíba

    Federal University of Paraíba (Proling/UFPB), João Pessoa – Paraíba (PB) – Brazil. Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics (Proling/UFPB), Graduate Program in Linguistics.

  • José Ferrari Neto, Federal University of Paraíba

    Federal University of Paraíba (Proling/UFPB), João Pessoa – Paraíba (PB) – Brazil. Associate Professor, Department of Portuguese Language and Linguistics (DLPL/CCHLA/UFPB), Graduate Program in Linguistics.

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Published

2026-08-26

Issue

(2026), v. 12, Publicação Contínua

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Artigos

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How to Cite

TOURINHO, C.; FERRARI NETO, J. Linguistic quantifiers and numerosity in autism: behavioral evidence regarding declarative memory compensation. Revista Hipótese, v. 12, n. 00, p. e026004, 26 Aug.2026.