Indiana University, United States.
University of Maryland, United States.
Cognition. 2019 Aug;189:89-104. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.03.013. Epub 2019 Mar 29.
Numerous studies from developmental psychology have suggested that human symbolic representation of numbers is built upon the evolutionally old capacity for representing quantities that is shared with other species. Substantial research from mathematics education also supports the idea that mathematical concepts are best learned through their corresponding physical representations. We argue for an independent pathway to learning "big" multi-digit symbolic numbers that focuses on the symbol system itself. Across five experiments using both between- and within-subject designs, we asked preschoolers to identify written multi-digit numbers with their spoken names in a two-alternative-choice-test or to indicate the larger quantity between two written numbers. Results showed that preschoolers could reliably map spoken number names to written forms and compare the magnitudes of two written multi-digit numbers. Importantly, these abilities were not related to their non-symbolic representation of quantities. These findings have important implications for numerical cognition, symbolic development, teaching, and education.
发展心理学的大量研究表明，人类对数字的符号表示是建立在与其他物种共同拥有的代表数量的进化古老能力之上的。来自数学教育的大量研究也支持这样一种观点，即数学概念最好通过其相应的物理表示来学习。我们主张有一种独立的途径来学习“大”的多位数符号数字，重点是符号系统本身。在五个使用组间和组内设计的实验中，我们要求学龄前儿童在二选一测试中用他们的口语名称识别写的多位数，或者在两个写的数字之间指出较大的数量。结果表明，学龄前儿童能够可靠地将口语数字名称映射到书面形式，并比较两个书面多位数的大小。重要的是，这些能力与他们对数量的非符号表示无关。这些发现对数值认知、符号发展、教学和教育都有重要意义。
