Matthews Percival G, Chesney Dana L
Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1025 W. Johnson Street, #884, Madison, WI 53706-1796, USA.
Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, 225 Psychology Building, 1835 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Cogn Psychol. 2015 May;78:28-56. doi: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2015.01.006. Epub 2015 Mar 20.
This study presents evidence that humans have intuitive, perceptually based access to the abstract fraction magnitudes instantiated by nonsymbolic ratio stimuli. Moreover, it shows these perceptually accessed magnitudes can be easily compared with symbolically represented fractions. In cross-format comparisons, participants picked the larger of two ratios. Ratios were presented either symbolically as fractions or nonsymbolically as paired dot arrays or as paired circles. Response patterns were consistent with participants comparing specific analog fractional magnitudes independently of the particular formats in which they were presented. These results pose a challenge to accounts that argue human cognitive architecture is ill-suited for processing fractions. Instead, it seems that humans can process nonsymbolic ratio magnitudes via perceptual routes and without recourse to conscious symbolic algorithms, analogous to the processing of whole number magnitudes. These findings have important implications for theories regarding the nature of human number sense - they imply that fractions may in some sense be natural numbers, too.
这项研究表明，人类能够通过直觉、基于感知的方式获取由非符号比例刺激所呈现的抽象分数大小。此外，研究还表明，这些通过感知获取的大小能够很容易地与以符号形式表示的分数进行比较。在跨格式比较中，参与者要从两个比例中选出较大的那个。比例以分数的形式符号化呈现，或者以配对的点阵列或配对的圆圈的形式非符号化呈现。反应模式与参与者独立于呈现比例的特定格式来比较特定的类似分数大小的情况一致。这些结果对那些认为人类认知结构不适合处理分数的观点提出了挑战。相反，人类似乎能够通过感知途径处理非符号比例大小，而无需借助有意识的符号算法，这类似于对整数大小的处理。这些发现对于有关人类数字感本质的理论具有重要意义——它们意味着分数在某种意义上也可能是自然数。
