Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60615, USA.
Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2022 Feb;214:105277. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105277. Epub 2021 Sep 6.
Children struggle with proportional reasoning when discrete countable information is available because they over-rely on this numerical information even when it leads to errors. In the current study, we investigated whether different types of gesture can exacerbate or mitigate these errors. Children aged 5-7 years (N = 135) were introduced to equivalent proportions using discrete gestures that highlighted separate parts, continuous gestures that highlighted continuous amounts, or no gesture. After training, children completed a proportional reasoning match-to-sample task where whole number information was occasionally pitted against proportional information. After the task, we measured children's own gesture use. Overall, we did not find condition differences in proportional reasoning; however, children who observed continuous gestures produced more continuous gestures than those who observed discrete gestures (and vice versa for discrete gestures). Moreover, producing fewer discrete gestures and more continuous gestures was associated with lower numerical interference on the match-to-sample task. Lastly, to further investigate individual differences, we found that children's inhibitory control and formal math knowledge were correlated with proportional reasoning in general but not with numerical interference in particular. Taken together, these findings highlight that children's own gestures may be a powerful window into the information they attend to during proportional reasoning.
当离散可数信息可用时，儿童在进行比例推理时会感到困难，因为他们即使知道这种数值信息会导致错误，也会过度依赖它。在当前的研究中，我们调查了不同类型的手势是否会加剧或减轻这些错误。我们让 5-7 岁的儿童（N=135）使用离散手势（突出显示单独的部分）、连续手势（突出显示连续数量）或不使用手势来了解相等的比例。在训练之后，孩子们完成了一个比例推理匹配样本任务，其中偶尔会出现整体数字信息与比例信息的对比。任务完成后，我们测量了孩子们自己的手势使用情况。总的来说，我们没有发现条件差异对比例推理的影响；然而，观察连续手势的儿童比观察离散手势的儿童产生更多的连续手势（反之亦然）。此外，产生较少的离散手势和更多的连续手势与匹配样本任务中的数字干扰程度较低有关。最后，为了进一步研究个体差异，我们发现儿童的抑制控制和正式数学知识与一般的比例推理相关，但与特定的数字干扰无关。综上所述，这些发现强调了儿童自己的手势可能是了解他们在进行比例推理时关注信息的有力窗口。
