Institut de Recherche en Sciences Psychologiques (IPSY), Centre de Neuroscience Système et Cognition (NeuroCS), Université Catholique de Louvain, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2011 Aug;109(4):525-39. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2011.03.011. Epub 2011 Apr 16.
Previous research has suggested that the use of the fingers may play a functional role in the development of a mature counting system. However, the role of developmental vision in the elaboration of a finger numeral representation remains unexplored. In the current study, 14 congenitally blind children and 14 matched sighted controls undertook three different test batteries that examined (a) general cognitive abilities, (b) the spontaneous use of finger-counting and finger-montring strategies (where "finger-montring" is a term used to characterize the way people raise their fingers to show numerosities to other people), and (c) the canonicity level of the finger-counting and finger-montring habits. Compared with sighted controls, blind children used their fingers less spontaneously to count and in a less canonical way to count and show quantities. These results demonstrate that the absence of vision precludes the development of a typical finger numeral representation and suggest that the use of canonical finger-counting and finger-montring strategies relies on the visual recognition of particular hand shapes.
先前的研究表明，手指的使用可能在成熟的计数系统发展中发挥功能作用。然而，发育中的视觉在手指数字表示的精细化过程中所起的作用仍有待探究。在本研究中，14 名先天性失明儿童和 14 名匹配的视力正常对照者参与了三个不同的测试环节，分别考察了（a）一般认知能力，（b）手指计数和手指比划策略的自发使用（其中“手指比划”是用来描述人们向他人展示数量时举起手指的方式的术语），以及（c）手指计数和手指比划习惯的规范性水平。与视力正常对照组相比，失明儿童较少自发地用手指计数，且手指计数和比划数量的方式也不那么规范。这些结果表明，视觉缺失会妨碍典型的手指数字表示的发展，并表明规范的手指计数和手指比划策略的使用依赖于对手部特定形状的视觉识别。
