Institute of Psychology, Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2012 Dec;113(4):594-601. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.08.002. Epub 2012 Sep 11.
The development of two-digit number processing in children, and in particular the influence of place-value understanding, has recently received increasing research interest. However, place-value influences leading to decomposed processing have not yet been investigated for multi-digit numbers beyond the two-digit number range in children. Therefore, we evaluated the separate influences of hundreds, tens, and units on three-digit number processing by means of the hundred distance effect, the decade-hundred compatibility effect, and the unit-hundred compatibility effect in a longitudinal design from Grade 2 to Grade 4. In a number magnitude comparison task, a strong hundred distance effect indicated that the magnitudes of the hundreds digits were predominantly processed. We also observed indexes of decomposed parallel processing of hundreds and units digits but not of hundreds and tens digits. Regarding the developmental trajectories, the hundred distance effect and the unit-hundred compatibility effect showed a reliable trend to increase with grade level. However, both the significance and the increase with grade level of decomposed parallel processing were observed to be less consistent than expected. The latter is discussed in terms of different processing strategies as well as specificities differentiating between two- and three-digit numbers. Taken together, these are the first data showing decomposed processing of three-digit numbers in children. Yet, it must be noted that the results also indicate that findings from two-digit number processing cannot simply be generalized to the three-digit number range.
儿童两位数数字处理的发展，特别是对数值理解的影响，最近引起了越来越多的研究兴趣。然而，对于两位数范围之外的多位数字，尚未研究过导致分解处理的数值影响。因此，我们通过百距效应、十百兼容性效应和单元百兼容性效应，在从二年级到四年级的纵向设计中，评估了百位、十位和个位对三位数数字处理的单独影响。在数字大小比较任务中，强烈的百距效应表明，百位数字的大小主要被处理。我们还观察到了百位和个位数字的分解并行处理的指标，但没有观察到百位和十位数字的分解并行处理的指标。关于发展轨迹，百距效应和单元百兼容性效应显示出与年级水平可靠增加的趋势。然而，与预期相比，分解并行处理的显著性和年级水平的增加都不太一致。后者是从不同的处理策略以及区分二位数和三位数的特异性方面来讨论的。总的来说，这些是首次在儿童中显示出三位数分解处理的数据。然而，必须指出的是，这些结果也表明，从两位数数字处理中得到的结果不能简单地推广到三位数范围。
