Children's understanding of number is similar to adults' and rats': numerical estimation by 5--7-year-olds.
Adult number representations can belong to either of two types. One is discrete, language-specific, and culturally-derived; the other is analog and language-independent. Quantitative evidence is presented to demonstrate that analog number representations are adult-like in young children. Five- to 7-year-olds accurately estimated rapidly presented groups of 5--11 items. Groups were presented in random order and random arrangements controlling for overall area. Children's data were qualitatively, and to some degree quantitatively, similar to adult data with one exception: the ratio of the standard deviation of estimates to mean estimates decreased with age.
Huntley-Fenner
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Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-5100, USA. ghuntley@uci.edu
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D051381:Rats; D011930:Reaction Time