Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T16:19:06.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

What is still needed? On nativist proposals for acquiring concepts of natural numbers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2008

Wen-Chi Chiang
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi 62102, [email protected]://www.psy.ccu.edu.tw/~psywcc/

Abstract

Rips et al.'s analyses have boosted the plausibility of proposals that the human mind embodies some critical properties of natural numbers. I suggest that such proposals can be further evaluated by infant studies, neuropsychological data, and evolution-based considerations, and additionally, that Rips et al.'s model may need to be modified in order to more completely reflect infants' quantitative abilities.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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

Cantlon, J., Fink, R., Safford, K. & Brannon, E. M. (2007) Heterogeneity impairs numerical matching but not numerical ordering in preschool children. Developmental Science 10:431–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cordes, S. & Brannon, E. M. (2007) Discriminations of small from large sets in human infants. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child DevelopmentBoston, March 29–April 1, 2007.Google Scholar
Feigenson, L. (2005) A double dissociation in infants' representation of object arrays. Cognition 95:B37B48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feigenson, L. & Carey, S. (2005) On the limits of infants' quantification of small object arrays. Cognition 97:B13B23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feigenson, L., Carey, S. & Hauser, M. (2002a) The representations underlying infants' choice of more: Object files versus analog magnitudes. Psychological Science 13:150–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gelman, R. & Gallistel, C. R. (1978) The child's understanding of number. Harvard University Press/MIT Press. (Second printing, 1985. Paperback issue with new preface, 1986).Google Scholar
Hauser, M. D., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W. T. (2002) The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298:1569–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leslie, A. M., Gallistel, C. R. & Gelman, R. (2007) Where integers come from. In: The innate mind, vol. 3: Foundations and the future, ed. Carruthers, P., Laurence, S. & Stich, S., pp. 109–38. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lipton, J. S. & Spelke, E. S. (2003) Origins of number sense: Large number discrimination in human infants. Psychological Science 14:396401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lipton, J. S. & Spelke, E. S. (2004) Discrimination of large and small numerosities by human infants. Infancy 5:271–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharon, T. & Wynn, K. (1998) Infants' individuation of actions from continuous motion. Psychological Science 9:357362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starkey, P. (1992) The early development of numerical reasoning. Cognition 43:93126.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wood, J. N. & Spelke, E. S. (2005) Infants' enumeration of actions: Numerical discrimination and its signature limits. Developmental Science 8:173–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wynn, K. (1996) Infants' individuation and enumeration of actions. Psychological Science 7:164–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar