General magnitude representation in human infants.

ABSTRACT: Behavioral demonstrations of reciprocal interactions among the dimensions of space, number, and time, along with evidence of shared neural mechanisms in posterior parietal cortex, are consistent with a common representational code for general magnitude information. Although much recent speculation has concerned the developmental origins of a system of general magnitude representation, direct evidence in preverbal infants is lacking. Here we show that 9-month-olds transfer associative learning across magnitude dimensions. For example, if shown that larger objects were black and had stripes and that smaller objects were white and had dots, infants expected the same color-pattern mapping to hold for numerosity (i.e., greater numerosity: black with stripes; smaller numerosity: white with dots)

SUBMITTER: Lourenco SF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2930776 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature