What does ‘three’ look like? Analogical reasoning in early number word acquisition

Resumen

The meaning of numbers is a difficult concept for young children to grasp. They have to learn that numbers don’t refer to any property that an individual object can have, such as color, but refer to an abstract relation between sets of objects, set size. Here, we tested whether children could learn number words from examples of sets that support inference via structural alignment. We trained two- and three-knowers (N = 65) on the next number (i.e. three or four) and assessed their learning with a two-alternative-forced-choice task and Give-a-Number task. Compared to children who received a control training, children who saw examples that support inference via structural alignment demonstrated slightly better outcomes. We discuss this result in light of analogical reasoning as a mechanism of concept learning in general and number learning in particular.

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Cómo citar (APA 7)

Wege, T. E., Merkley, R., Cheung, P., Jasim, S., & Ansari, D. (2022). What does ‘three’ look like? Analogical reasoning in early number word acquisition. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/y57cp