Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T08:26:47.805Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Right idea, wrong magnitude system

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2017

Stella F. Lourenco
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322stella.lourenco@emory.edulauren.s.aulet@emory.eduvladislav.ayzenberg@emory.educcheun4@emory.eduhttp://psychology.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/lourenco-stella.html
Lauren S. Aulet
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322stella.lourenco@emory.edulauren.s.aulet@emory.eduvladislav.ayzenberg@emory.educcheun4@emory.eduhttp://psychology.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/lourenco-stella.html
Vladislav Ayzenberg
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322stella.lourenco@emory.edulauren.s.aulet@emory.eduvladislav.ayzenberg@emory.educcheun4@emory.eduhttp://psychology.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/lourenco-stella.html
Chi-Ngai Cheung
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322stella.lourenco@emory.edulauren.s.aulet@emory.eduvladislav.ayzenberg@emory.educcheun4@emory.eduhttp://psychology.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/lourenco-stella.html
Kevin J. Holmes
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO 80903kjholmes@coloradocollege.eduhttps://sites.google.com/site/kjholmes05/

Abstract

Leibovich et al. claim that number representations are non-existent early in life and that the associations between number and continuous magnitudes reside in stimulus confounds. We challenge both claims – positing, instead, that number is represented independently of continuous magnitudes already in infancy, but is nonetheless more deeply connected to other magnitudes through adulthood than acknowledged by the “sense of magnitude” theory.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atkinson, J. & Braddick, O. (1992) Visual segmentation of oriented textures by infants. Behavioural Brain Research 49:123–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Atkinson, J., Braddick, O. & Braddick, F. (1974) Acuity and contrast sensitivity of infant vision. Nature 247:403404.Google Scholar
Banks, M. S. & Salapatek, P. (1981) Infant pattern vision: A new approach based on the contrast sensitivity function. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 31:145.Google Scholar
Bonny, J. W. & Lourenco, S. F. (in preparation) The impact of spatial context of non-symbolic number and cumulative area judgments.Google Scholar
Brown, A. M. & Yamamoto, M. (1986) Visual acuity in newborn and preterm infants measured with grating acuity cards. American Journal of Ophthalmology 102:245–53.Google Scholar
Cantrell, L. & Smith, L. B. (2013) Open questions and a proposal: A critical review of the evidence on infant numerical abilities. Cognition 128(3):331–52. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.04.008.Google Scholar
Carey, S. & Xu, F. (2001) Infants' knowledge of objects: Beyond object files and object tracking. Cognition 80:179213.Google Scholar
Cordes, S. & Brannon, E. M. (2009) The relative salience of discrete and continuous quantity in young infants. Developmental Science 12(3):453–63. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00781.x.Google Scholar
Cordes, S. & Brannon, E. M. (2011) Attending to one of many: When infants are surprisingly poor at discriminating an item's size. Frontiers in Psychology 2:65. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00065.Google Scholar
DeWind, N. K. & Brannon, E. M. (2012) Malleability of the approximate number system: Effects of feedback and training. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6:68.Google Scholar
Harvey, B. M., Fracasso, A., Petridou, N. & Dumoulin, S. O. (2015) Topographic representations of object size and relationships with numerosity reveal generalized quantity processing in human parietal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112(44):13525–30. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1515414112.Google Scholar
Holmes, K. J. & Lourenco, S. F. (2011) Common spatial organization of number and emotional expression: A mental magnitude line. Brain and Cognition 77:315–23.Google Scholar
Izard, V., Sann, C., Spelke, E. S. & Steri, A. (2009) Newborn infants perceive abstract numbers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106(25):10382–85.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. P. & Aslin, R. N. (1995) Perception of object unity in 2-month-old infants. Developmental Psychology 31:739–45.Google Scholar
Kellman, P. J. & Spelke, E. S. (1983) Perception of partly occluded objects in infancy. Cognitive Psychology 15:483524.Google Scholar
Kestenbaum, R., Termine, N. & Spelke, E. S. (1987) Perception of objects and object boundaries by 3-month-old infants. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 5:367–83.Google Scholar
Leslie, A. M., Xu, F., Tremoulet, P. D., & Scholl, B. J. (1998) Indexing and the object concept: Developing ‘what’ and ‘where’ systems. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2:1018.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lourenco, S. F. (2015) On the relation between numerical and non-numerical magnitudes: Evidence for a general magnitude system. In: Evolutionary origins and early development of number processing, ed. Geary, D. C., Berch, D. B. & Koepke, K. M., pp. 145–74. Elsevier Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lourenco, S. F. (2016) How do humans represent numerical and nonnumerical magnitudes? Evidence for an integrated system of magnitude representation across development. In: Continuous issues in numerical cognition: How many or how much, ed. Henik, A., pp. 375403. Elsevier Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lourenco, S. F. & Aulet, L. S. (submitted) Cross-magnitude interactions across development: Longitudinal support for a general magnitude system.Google Scholar
Lourenco, S. F., Ayzenberg, V. & Lyu, J. (2016) A general magnitude system in human adults: Evidence from a subliminal priming paradigm. Cortex 81:93103.Google Scholar
Lourenco, S. F. & Bonny, J. W. (2016) Representations of numerical and non-numerical magnitude both contribute to mathematical competence in children. Developmental Science. Available online May 4, 2016. doi: 10.1111/desc.12418.Google Scholar
Lourenco, S. F. & Longo, M. R. (2010) General magnitude representation in human infants. Psychological Science 21:873–81.Google Scholar
Needham, A. (1998) Infants' use of featural information in the segregation of stationary objects. Infant Behavior and Development 21:4776.Google Scholar
Odic, D., Libertus, M. E., Feigenson, L. & Halberda, J. (2013) Developmental change in the acuity of approximate number and area representations. Developmental Psychology 49(6):1103–12.Google Scholar
Piazza, M., Pica, P., Izard, V., Spelke, E. S. & Dehaene, S. (2013) Education enhances the acuity of the nonverbal approximate number system. Psychological Science 24:1037–43.Google Scholar
Slater, A., Morison, V., Somers, M., Mattock, A., Brown, E. & Taylor, D. (1990) Newborn and older infants' perception of partly occluded objects. Infant Behavior and Development 13:3349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valenza, E., Leo, I., Gava, L. & Simion, F. (2006) Perceptual completion in newborn human infants. Child Development 77(6):1810–21.Google Scholar
Wilcox, T. (1999) Object individuation: Infants' use of shape, size, pattern, and color. Cognition 72:125–66.Google Scholar