Young Children's Concept of Middle in the Domain of Number Open Access
Cheung, Chi Ngai (2012)
Published
Abstract
The concept of middle is critical for a variety of everyday
judgments, applicable across a variety of magnitude domains (e.g.,
physical size and number sequences). It may also serve as a
precursor to advanced mathematical concepts such as interpolation.
Young children's understanding of the middle concept in the domain
of numerosity, however, is poorly understood. The current study
examined 3- to 5- year-olds' ability to choose the midpoint value
in a set of non-symbolic number arrays. We found that midpoint
estimation emerges at the age of 4 years, and that this ability may
be supported by the approximate number system (ANS), as accuracy is
subject to ratio effects. Results also point to interactions
between spatial and numerical concepts of middle. Specifically, all
age groups were biased to
choose the number arrays located in the middle spatial position,
even though location was irrelevant to the task of judging the
numerical midpoint. The interaction between spatial and numerical
representations provides support for the mental number line model
(Dehaene, Dupoux, & Mehler, 1990; Moyer & Landauer, 1967;
Restle, 1970) and a general magnitude system (Walsh, 2003).
Table of Contents
Introduction 5
Experiment One 11
Method 12
Results and Discussion 15
Experiment Two 19
Method 19
Results and Discussion 20
General Discussion 22
References 29
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