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Making numbers out of magnitudes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2008

Bradley J. Morris  and
Amy M. Masnick
Bradley J. Morris
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI 49401; [email protected]
Amy M. Masnick
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY 11549. [email protected]
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Abstract

We argue that number principles may be learnable instead of innate, by suggesting that children acquire probabilistically true number concepts rather than algorithms. We also suggest that non-propositional representational formats (e.g., mental models) may implicitly provide information that supports the induction of numerical principles. Given probabilistically true number concepts, the problem of the acquisition of mathematical principles is eliminated.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 6 , December 2008 , pp. 662 - 663
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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