.png){kind=icon}
.png){kind=icon}
Return
Infants recognize counting as numerically relevant
.png){kind=icon}
PRE
AI
DOI：10.1111/desc.12805.png)
.png){kind=icon}
Original request for help.png){kind=icon}
Share.png){kind=icon}
Save
Abstract
En 中文
Children do not understand the meanings of count words like two and three until the preschool years. But even before knowing the meanings of these individual words, might they recognize that counting is about the dimension of number? Here in five experiments, we asked whether infants already associate counting with quantities. We measured 14- and 18-month olds' ability to remember different numbers of hidden objects that either were or were not counted by an experimenter before hiding. As in previous research, we found that infants failed to differentiate four hidden objects from two when the objects were not counted-suggesting an upper limit on the number of individual objects they could represent in working memory. However, infants succeeded when the objects were simply counted aloud before hiding. We found that counting also helped infants differentiate four hidden objects from six (a 2:3 ratio), but not three hidden objects from four (a 3:4 ratio), suggesting that counting helped infants represent the arrays' approximate cardinalities. Hence counting directs infants' attention to numerical aspects of the world, showing that they recognize counting as numerically relevant years before acquiring the meanings of number words.
Keywords:
approximate number system
counting
infants
number words
working memory
AI Summary
Key information extracted from the uploaded paper, including a brief overview, abstract, background, key highlights, visual analysis, and future outlook.