title: Children's expectations about training the approximate number system.
abstract: Humans possess a developmentally precocious and evolutionarily ancient approximate number system (ANS) whose sensitivity correlates with uniquely human symbolic arithmetic skills. Recent studies suggest that ANS training improves symbolic arithmetic, but such studies may engender performance expectations in their participants that in turn produce the improvement. Here, we assessed 6- to 8-year-old children's expectations about the effects of numerical and non-numerical magnitude training, as well as states of satiety and restfulness, in the context of a study linking children's ANS practice to their improved symbolic arithmetic. We found that children did not expect gains in symbolic arithmetic after exercising the ANS, although they did expect gains in ANS acuity after training on any magnitude task. Moreover, children expected gains in symbolic arithmetic after a good night's sleep and their favourite breakfast. Thus, children's improved symbolic arithmetic after ANS training cannot be explained by their expectations about that training.
authors.affiliation: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Moira R
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6689-5316
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Dillon
authors.affiliation: University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay.|Autonomous University of Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain.
authors.forename: Ana C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Pires
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Hyde
authors.affiliation: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Spelke
mesh_terms: D059031:Anticipation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D062408:Breakfast; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D012890:Sleep
keywords: approximate number system; cognitive training; expectations; symbolic mathematics