title: The development of numerical estimation: evidence against a representational shift.
abstract: How do our mental representations of number change over development? The dominant view holds that children (and adults) possess multiple representations of number, and that age and experience lead to a shift from greater reliance upon logarithmically organized number representations to greater reliance upon more accurate, linear representations. Here we present a new theoretically motivated and empirically supported account of the development of numerical estimation, based on the idea that number-line estimation tasks entail judgments of proportion. We extend existing models of perceptual proportion judgment to the case of abstract numerical magnitude. Two experiments provide support for these models; three likely sources of developmental change in children's estimation performance are identified and discussed. This work demonstrates that proportion-judgment models provide a unified account of estimation patterns that have previously been explained in terms of a developmental shift from logarithmic to linear representations of number.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Wesleyan University, 207 High Street, Middletown, CT 06459, USA. hbarth@wesleyan.edu
authors.forename: Hilary C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Barth
authors.forename: Annie M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Paladino
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D010465:Perception; D011340:Problem Solving