Infants recognize counting as numerically relevant. Issue 6 (22nd February 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wang, Jinjing (Jenny); Feigenson, Lisa
• Is Part Of: Developmental science. Volume 22:Issue 6(2019)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2019-02-22
• Subjects: approximate number system -- counting -- infants -- number words -- working memory; Developmental psychology -- Periodicals; Psychology, Comparative -- Periodicals; 155
• DOI: 10.1111/desc.12805
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1363-755X

Abstract

Abstract: 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. Abstract : Fourteen‐ and 18‐month‐old infants remembered more hidden objects when objects were counted before hiding than when they were not. Counting directs infants' attention to the dimension of numerosity long before children understand the meanings of individual count words.