University of Western Ontario.
University of Pennsylvania.
Dev Psychol. 2018 Mar;54(3):440-457. doi: 10.1037/dev0000445. Epub 2017 Nov 20.
There is currently considerable discussion about the relative influences of evolutionary and cultural factors in the development of early numerical skills. In particular, there has been substantial debate and study of the relationship between approximate, nonverbal (approximate magnitude system [AMS]) and exact, symbolic (symbolic number system [SNS]) representations of number. Here we examined several hypotheses concerning whether, in the earliest stages of formal education, AMS abilities predict growth in SNS abilities, or the other way around. In addition to tasks involving symbolic (Arabic numerals) and nonsymbolic (dot arrays) number comparisons, we also tested children's ability to translate between the 2 systems (i.e., mixed-format comparison). Our data included a sample of 539 kindergarten children (M = 5.17 years, SD = .29), with AMS, SNS, and mixed-comparison skills assessed at the beginning and end of the academic year. In this way, we provide, to the best of our knowledge, the most comprehensive test to date of the direction of influence between the AMS and SNS in early formal schooling. Results were more consistent with the view that SNS abilities at the beginning of kindergarten lay the foundation for improvement in both AMS abilities and the ability to translate between the 2 systems. It is important to note that we found no evidence to support the reverse. We conclude that, once one acquires a basic grasp of exact number symbols, it is this understanding of exact number (and perhaps repeated practice therewith) that facilitates growth in the AMS. Though the precise mechanism remains to be understood, these data challenge the widely held view that the AMS scaffolds the acquisition of the SNS. (PsycINFO Database Record
目前，关于进化和文化因素在早期数字技能发展中的相对影响，存在着大量的讨论。特别是，人们对数量的近似的、非言语的（近似数量系统[AMS]）和精确的、符号的（符号数量系统[SNS]）表示之间的关系进行了大量的辩论和研究。在这里，我们检验了几个关于在正规教育的早期阶段，AMS 能力是否预测 SNS 能力的增长，或者相反的假设。除了涉及符号（阿拉伯数字）和非符号（点数组）数量比较的任务外，我们还测试了儿童在这两种系统之间转换的能力（即混合格式比较）。我们的数据包括 539 名幼儿园儿童的样本（M=5.17 岁，SD=.29），在学年开始和结束时评估了他们的 AMS、SNS 和混合比较技能。通过这种方式，我们提供了迄今为止最全面的测试，以了解在早期正规教育中 AMS 和 SNS 之间的影响方向。结果更符合这样的观点，即幼儿园开始时的 SNS 能力为 AMS 能力和两种系统之间转换的能力的提高奠定了基础。需要注意的是，我们没有发现任何证据支持相反的观点。我们的结论是，一旦一个人掌握了精确数字符号的基本概念，那么这种对精确数字的理解（也许是反复练习）就会促进 AMS 的发展。尽管确切的机制仍有待理解，但这些数据挑战了广泛持有的观点，即 AMS 支撑了 SNS 的获取。
