Sasanguie Delphine, Defever Emmy, Maertens Bieke, Reynvoet Bert
a Experimental Psychology , KU Leuven , Leuven , Belgium.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2014 Feb;67(2):271-80. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2013.803581. Epub 2013 Jun 14.
The relation between the approximate number system (ANS) and symbolic number processing skills remains unclear. Some theories assume that children acquire the numerical meaning of symbols by mapping them onto the preexisting ANS. Others suggest that in addition to the ANS, children also develop a separate, exact representational system for symbolic number processing. In the current study, we contribute to this debate by investigating whether the nonsymbolic number processing of kindergarteners is predictive for symbolic number processing. Results revealed no association between the accuracy of the kindergarteners on a nonsymbolic number comparison task and their performance on the symbolic comparison task six months later, suggesting that there are two distinct representational systems for the ANS and numerical symbols.
近似数字系统（ANS）与符号数字处理技能之间的关系仍不明确。一些理论认为，儿童通过将符号映射到预先存在的ANS上来获取符号的数字含义。另一些理论则表明，除了ANS之外，儿童还会为符号数字处理发展出一个独立的、精确的表征系统。在当前的研究中，我们通过调查幼儿园儿童的非符号数字处理是否能预测符号数字处理，为这场争论做出了贡献。结果显示，幼儿园儿童在非符号数字比较任务中的准确性与他们六个月后在符号比较任务中的表现之间没有关联，这表明ANS和数字符号存在两种不同的表征系统。
