Toward exact number: young children use one-to-one correspondence to measure set identity but not numerical equality.

ABSTRACT: Exact integer concepts are fundamental to a wide array of human activities, but their origins are obscure. Some have proposed that children are endowed with a system of natural number concepts, whereas others have argued that children construct these concepts by mastering verbal counting or other numeric symbols. This debate remains unresolved, because it is difficult to test children's mastery of the logic of integer concepts without using symbols to enumerate large sets, and the symbols themselves could be a source of difficulty for children. Here, we introduce a new method, focusing on large quantities and avoiding the use of words or other symbols for numbers, to study children's understanding of an essential property underlying integer concepts: the relation of exact numerical equalit

SUBMITTER: Izard V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4061742 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature