FA Judgement of Numerical Equivalence and Numerical Categorization by Young Children with Disabilities (original) (raw)
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Behavioral and Brain Functions, 2007
In the numerical Stroop paradigm (NSP) participants decide whether a digit is numerically or physically larger than another simultaneously presented digit. This paradigm is frequently used to assess the automatic number processing abilities of children. Currently it is unclear whether an equally refined evaluation of numerical magnitude occurs in both controlled (the numerical comparison task of the NSP) and automatic (the physical comparison task of the NSP) numerical comparison in both children and adults. One of our objectives was to respond this question by measuring the speed of controlled and automatic magnitude processing in children and adults in the NSP. Another objective was to determine how the immature executive functions of children affect their cognitive functions relative to adults in numerical comparison.
2020
Children can successfully compare continuous proportions as early as age 4, yet struggle to compare discrete proportions least to age 10, especially when the discrete information is misleading. This study examined whether inhibitory control contributes to individual differences in discrete proportional reasoning and whether reasoning could be enhanced by priming continuous information. Forty-nine second-graders completed two tasks. In the Hearts and Flowers (H&F) task, a measure of inhibition, children pressed either on the corresponding or opposite side depending on the identity of the displayed figure. In the Spinners task, a measure of proportional reasoning, children chose the spinner with the proportionally larger red area, across continuous and two discrete formats. In the discrete adjacent format, the continuous stimuli were segmented into sections, which could be compatible with the proportional information or misleading; the discrete mixed format interspersed the colored se...
Heterogeneity impairs numerical matching but not numerical ordering in preschool children
Developmental Science, 2007
Do preschool children appreciate numerical value as an abstract property of a set of objects? We tested the influence of stimulus features such as size, shape, and color on preschool children's developing nonverbal numerical abilities. Children between 3 and 5 years of age were tested on their ability to estimate number when the sizes, shapes, and colors of the elements in an array were varied (heterogeneous condition) versus when they did not vary (homogeneous condition). One group of children was tested on an ordinal task in which the goal was to select the smaller of two arrays while another group of children was tested on a match-to-sample task in which the goal was to choose one of two visual arrays that matched the sample in number. Children performed above chance on both homogeneous and heterogeneous stimuli in both tasks. However, while children showed no impairment on heterogeneous relative to homogeneous arrays in the ordering task, performance was impaired by heterogeneity in the matching task. We suggest that nonverbal numerical abstraction occurs early in development, but specific task objectives may prevent children from engaging in numerical abstraction.
Preschoolers can form abstract rule representations regardless of cognitive flexibility
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2014
The abstractness of rule representations in the pre-switch phase of the Dimensional Change Card Sorting (DCCS) task was studied by letting 3-and 4-year-old children perform a standard DCCS task and a separate generalization task. In the generalization task, children were asked to generalize their sorting rules to novel stimuli in one of three conditions. In the relevant change condition, values of the relevant dimension changed; in the irrelevant change condition, values of the irrelevant dimension changed; and in the total change condition, values of both dimensions changed. All children showed high performance on the generalization task in the relevant change condition, implying an abstract rule representation at the level of dimensions (''same colors go together''). Performance in the relevant change condition was significantly better (and faster) than performance in the other two conditions. Children with high cognitive flexibility (switchers on the DCCS task) more often switched their attention to the irrelevant dimension in the generalization task only if values of the irrelevant dimension changed. Children with low cognitive flexibility (perseverators) were more often inconsistent in their sorting on the generalization task if values of both dimensions changed. The difference in performance on the DCCS task between switchers and perseverators seems to result from the processes that operate on the learned sorting rules and not from the abstractness of the rule representations children have.
PLoS ONE, 2013
Given the well-documented failings in mathematics education in many Western societies, there has been an increased interest in understanding the cognitive underpinnings of mathematical achievement. Recent research has proposed the existence of an Approximate Number System (ANS) which allows individuals to represent and manipulate non-verbal numerical information. Evidence has shown that performance on a measure of the ANS (a dot comparison task) is related to mathematics achievement, which has led researchers to suggest that the ANS plays a critical role in mathematics learning. Here we show that, rather than being driven by the nature of underlying numerical representations, this relationship may in fact be an artefact of the inhibitory control demands of some trials of the dot comparison task. This suggests that recent work basing mathematics assessments and interventions around dot comparison tasks may be inappropriate.
The Opposites Task: Using General Rules to Test Cognitive Flexibility in Preschoolers
Journal of Cognition and Development, 2010
Executive functions play an important role in cognitive development and, during the preschool years especially, children's performance is limited in tasks that demand flexibility in their behavior. We asked whether preschoolers would exhibit limitations when they are required to apply a general rule in the context of novel stimuli on every trial (the "opposites" task). Two types of inhibitory processing were measured: response interference (resistance to interference from a competing response) and proactive interference (resistance to interference from a previously relevant rule). Group data show three-year-olds have difficulty inhibiting prepotent tendencies under these conditions, whereas five-year-olds' accuracy is near ceiling in the task.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
According to the Cognitive Complexity and Control (CCC) theory, the development of executive function can be understood in terms of age-related increases in the maximum complexity of the rules children can formulate and use when solving problems. This Monograph describes four studies (9 experiments) designed to test hypotheses derived from the CCC theory and from alternative theoretical perspectives on the development of executive function (memory accounts, inhibition accounts, and redescription accounts). Each study employed a version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS), in which children are required first to sort cards by one pair of rules (e.g., color rules: "If red then here, if blue then there"), and then sort the same cards by another, incompatible pair of rules (e.g., shape rules). Study 1 found that although most 3-to 4-year-olds failed the standard version of this task (i.e., they perseverated on the preswitch rules during the postswitch phase), they usually performed well when they were required to use four rules (including bidimensional rules) and those rules were not in conflict (i.e., they did not require children to respond in two different ways to the same test card). These findings indicate that children's perseveration cannot be attributed in a straightforward fashion to limitations in children's memory capacity. Study 2 examined the circumstances in which children can use conflicting rules. Three experiments demonstrated effects of rule dimensionality (uni-vs. bidimensional rules) but no effects of stimulus characteristics (1 vs. 2 test cards; spatially integrated vs. separated stimuli). Taken together, these studies suggest that conflict among rules is a key determinant of difficulty, but that conflict interacts with dimensionality.