Göbel Silke M, McCrink Koleen, Fischer Martin H, Shaki Samuel
Department of Psychology, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK.
Department of Psychology, Barnard College of Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2018 Feb;166:49-66. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.08.001. Epub 2017 Aug 31.
Even before formal schooling, children map numbers onto space in a directional manner. The origin of this preliterate spatial-numerical association is still debated. We investigated the role of enculturation for shaping the directionality of the association between numbers and space, focusing on counting behavior in 3- to 5-year-old preliterate children. Two studies provide evidence that, after observing reading from storybooks (left-to-right or right-to-left reading) children change their counting direction in line with the direction of observed reading. Just observing visuospatial directional movements had no such effect on counting direction. Complementarily, we document that book illustrations, prevalent in children's cultures, exhibit directionality that conforms to the direction of a culture's written language. We propose that shared book reading activates spatiotemporal representations of order in young children, which in turn affect their spatial representation of numbers.
甚至在接受正规学校教育之前，儿童就以一种定向的方式将数字映射到空间上。这种文字前的空间-数字关联的起源仍存在争议。我们研究了文化适应在塑造数字与空间关联的方向性方面所起的作用，重点关注3至5岁未识字儿童的计数行为。两项研究提供了证据，表明在观察故事书阅读（从左到右或从右到左阅读）后，儿童会根据观察到的阅读方向改变他们的计数方向。仅仅观察视觉空间定向运动对计数方向没有这种影响。作为补充，我们记录到，儿童文化中普遍存在的书籍插图呈现出与一种文化的书面语言方向相符的方向性。我们提出，共同阅读书籍会激活幼儿对顺序的时空表征，进而影响他们对数字的空间表征。
