ERIC Number: EJ730251
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004-Sep
Pages: 10
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0010-0277
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Available Date: N/A
Number Bias for the Discrimination of Large Visual Sets in Infancy
Brannon, Elizabeth M.; Abbott, Sara; Lutz, Donna J.
Cognition, v93 n2 pB59-B68 Sep 2004
This brief report attempts to resolve the claim that infants preferentially attend to continuous variables over number [e.g. Psychol. Sci. 10 (1999) 408; Cognit. Psychol.44 (2002) 33] with the finding that when continuous variables are controlled, infants as young as 6-months of age discriminate large numerical values [e.g. Psychol. Sci. 14 (2003) 396; Cognition 89 (2003) B15; Cognition 74 (2000) B1]. In two parallel experiments, we compare 6-month-old infants' ability to discriminate number and ignore continuous variables with their ability to form a representation of a cumulative surface area and ignore number. We find that infants discriminate a 2-fold change in number but fail to discriminate a 2-fold change in cumulative surface area. The results point to a more complicated relationship between discrete and continuous dimensions than implied by previous literature.
Descriptors: Number Concepts, Numbers, Infants, Discrimination Learning, Cognitive Development, Developmental Psychology, Dimensional Preference, Bayesian Statistics, Visual Perception, Predictor Variables, Visual Discrimination
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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