Priming analog magnitudes facilitates cross-boundary number comparisons in 10- to 12-month-old infants.
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It is believed that two cognitive systems underlie infants' intuitive number abilities -- the Analog Magnitude System (AMS) and the Object Tracking System (OTS). During infancy, the OTS is mostly responsible for representing small numbers ([less than or equal to] 3), and the AMS is mostly involved in large number ([greater than or equal to] 4) representations. While infants represent objects, these two systems cannot communicate during the first year of life, which creates a divide between small and large numbers. Infants will display a cross-boundary failure when discriminating between sets of objects. However, it is unclear whether this gap can be filled during development and maturity, enabling young children to perform cross-boundary comparisons. If infants start to be able to discriminate across boundaries, what underlying mechanism leads to this change? Two studies, using a paradigm very similar to Feigenson & Carey (2005), in which the experimenter hid snacks one by one into two cups and asked infants to choose one cup, were conducted to further understand the development and relation of the OTS and the AMS in infancy. Study 1 tested 15-, 18-, and 21- to 24-month-old infants' performance in cross-boundary number discrimination of 1:4 (1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 8) and 1:2 (3 vs. 6) ratios to portray the development trajectory of cross-boundary number discrimination. Study 2 added a priming manipulation before the cup-choosing task by displaying a plate of 10 Cheerios for 10 seconds to test if pre-exposure to numbers exceeding the OTS system/ a set of substances can facilitate 10- to 12-month-old to do crossboundary number discrimination. Study 1 found that 18-month-olds start to be able to discriminate 1 vs. 4, and 21- to 24-month-olds start to be able to discriminate 2 vs. 8. The role of plural/singular morphosyntax in single vs. non-single discrimination and the development of the OTS and the AMS are discussed. For Study 2, 10- to 12-month olds reliably chose the larger quantity in the 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 8, and 2 vs. 4 conditions. The results indicate that by simply exposing infants to a number exceeding the OTS capacity, infants start to succeed in cross-boundary number discrimination at 10-12 months of age. The possibility of the AMS being primed by the display of a number exceeding the OTS capacity and enabling the AMS to override the OTS prevalent in small number discrimination is proposed.
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M.A.