title: On the language specificity of basic number processing: transcoding in a language with inversion and its relation to working memory capacity.
abstract: Transcoding Arabic numbers from and into verbal number words is one of the most basic number processing tasks commonly used to index the verbal representation of numbers. The inversion property, which is an important feature of some number word systems (e.g., German einundzwanzig [one and twenty]), might represent a major difficulty in transcoding and a challenge to current transcoding models. The mastery of inversion, and of transcoding in general, might be related to nonnumerical factors such as working memory resources given that different elements and their sequence need to be memorized and manipulated. In this study, transcoding skills and different working memory components in Austrian (German-speaking) 7-year-olds were assessed. We observed that inversion poses a major problem in transcoding for German-speaking children. In addition, different components of working memory skills were differentially correlated with particular transcoding error types. We discuss how current transcoding models could account for these results and how they might need to be adapted to accommodate inversion properties and their relation to different working memory components.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for Neurocognitive Research, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria. julia.zuber@sbg.ac.at
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zuber
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pixner
authors.forename: Korbinian
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Moeller
authors.forename: Hans-Christoph
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Nuerk
mesh_terms: D001076:Aptitude; D002648:Child; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011340:Problem Solving; D012660:Semantics