Patro Katarzyna, Fischer Ursula, Nuerk Hans-Christoph, Cress Ulrike
Knowledge Media Research Center, Tuebingen, Germany.
Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Poland.
Dev Sci. 2016 Jan;19(1):126-44. doi: 10.1111/desc.12296. Epub 2015 May 1.
Spatial processing of numbers has emerged as one of the basic properties of humans' mathematical thinking. However, how and when number-space relations develop is a highly contested issue. One dominant view has been that a link between numbers and left/right spatial directions is constructed based on directional experience associated with reading and writing. However, some early forms of a number-space link have been observed in preschool children who cannot yet read and write. As literacy experience is evidently not necessary for number-space effects, we are searching for other potential sources of this association. Here we propose and test a hypothesis that the number-space link can be quickly constructed in preschool children's cognition on the basis of spatially oriented visuo-motor activities. We trained 3- and 4-year-old children with a non-numerical spatial movement task (left-to-right or right-to-left), where via touch screen children had to move a frog across a pond. After the training, children had to perform a numerosity comparison task. After left-to-right training, we observed a SNARC-like effect (reactions to smaller numbers were faster on the left side, and reactions to larger numbers on the right side), and after right-to-left training a reverse effect. These results are the first to show a causal link between visuo-motor activities and number-space associations in children before they learn to read and write. We argue that simple activities, such as manual games, dominant in a given society, might shape number-space associations in children in a way similar to lifelong reading training.
数字的空间处理已成为人类数学思维的基本属性之一。然而，数字与空间关系如何以及何时发展是一个备受争议的问题。一种主流观点认为，数字与左/右空间方向之间的联系是基于与读写相关的方向体验构建的。然而，在尚未具备读写能力的学龄前儿童中也观察到了数字 - 空间联系的一些早期形式。由于读写经验显然不是数字 - 空间效应的必要条件，我们正在寻找这种关联的其他潜在来源。在此，我们提出并检验一个假设，即数字 - 空间联系可以在学龄前儿童的认知中基于空间定向的视觉 - 运动活动快速构建。我们用一个非数字空间运动任务（从左到右或从右到左）对3岁和4岁的儿童进行训练，在这个任务中，孩子们必须通过触摸屏让一只青蛙穿过一个池塘。训练后，孩子们要进行数量比较任务。经过从左到右的训练后，我们观察到了一种类似SNARC的效应（对较小数字的反应在左侧更快，对较大数字的反应在右侧更快），而在从右到左的训练后则出现了相反的效应。这些结果首次表明，在儿童学习读写之前，视觉 - 运动活动与数字 - 空间关联之间存在因果联系。我们认为，在特定社会中占主导地位的简单活动，如手工游戏，可能会以类似于终身阅读训练的方式塑造儿童的数字 - 空间关联。
