title: Math in actions: actor mode reveals the true arithmetic abilities of French-speaking 2-year-olds in a magic task.
abstract: Our previous studies provide some evidence of between-language effects on arithmetic performance in 2-year-olds. French-speaking children were especially biased by the use of the word un as a cardinal value and as an article in the singular/plural opposition (1 vs. the set 2, 3, ...). Here we evaluated the ability of a new action-based assessment method to avoid this bias. A total of 80 French-speaking 2- and 3-year-olds were confronted with impossible (1+1=1 or 1+1=3) and possible (1+1=2) addition problems that triggered the bias. The problems were either presented to the children by the experimenter (onlooker mode) or realized by themselves (actor mode). The 2-year-olds performed better in the actor mode than in the onlooker mode. A subtraction control with no language ambiguity (2-1=2 or 1) was conducted with 80 other children; both modes elicited comparable performances regardless of age. These data indicate that the actor mode is effective for assessing arithmetic ability in French-speaking 2-year-olds.
authors.affiliation: UMR 6232 (CI-NAPS), CNRS, CEA, University of Caen and University of Paris Descartes, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Amélie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lubin
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Poirel
authors.forename: Sandrine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rossi
authors.forename: Arlette
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pineau
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Houdé
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis