Cargando…

Everything is Infinite: Children’s Beliefs About Endless Space, Time, and Number

How do children form beliefs about the infinity of space, time, and number? We asked whether children held similar beliefs about infinity across domains, and whether beliefs in infinity for domains like space and time might be scaffolded upon numerical knowledge (e.g., knowledge successors within th...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sullivan, Jessica, Cramer-Benjamin, Sophie, Alvarez, Joseph, Barner, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MIT Press 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10575555/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37840760
http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00104
_version_ 1785120948379189248
author Sullivan, Jessica
Cramer-Benjamin, Sophie
Alvarez, Joseph
Barner, David
author_facet Sullivan, Jessica
Cramer-Benjamin, Sophie
Alvarez, Joseph
Barner, David
author_sort Sullivan, Jessica
collection PubMed
description How do children form beliefs about the infinity of space, time, and number? We asked whether children held similar beliefs about infinity across domains, and whether beliefs in infinity for domains like space and time might be scaffolded upon numerical knowledge (e.g., knowledge successors within the count list). To test these questions, 112 U.S. children (aged 4;0–7;11) completed an interview regarding their beliefs about infinite space, time, and number. We also measured their knowledge of counting, and other factors that might impact performance on linguistic assessments of infinity belief (e.g., working memory, ability to respond to hypothetical questions). We found that beliefs about infinity were very high across all three domains, suggesting that infinity beliefs may arise early in development for space, time, and number. Second, we found that—across all three domains—children were more likely to believe that it is always possible to add a unit than to believe that the domain is endless. Finally, we found that understanding the rules underlying counting predicted children’s belief that it is always possible to add 1 to any number, but did not predict any of the other elements of infinity belief.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10575555
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher MIT Press
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-105755552023-10-14 Everything is Infinite: Children’s Beliefs About Endless Space, Time, and Number Sullivan, Jessica Cramer-Benjamin, Sophie Alvarez, Joseph Barner, David Open Mind (Camb) Research Article How do children form beliefs about the infinity of space, time, and number? We asked whether children held similar beliefs about infinity across domains, and whether beliefs in infinity for domains like space and time might be scaffolded upon numerical knowledge (e.g., knowledge successors within the count list). To test these questions, 112 U.S. children (aged 4;0–7;11) completed an interview regarding their beliefs about infinite space, time, and number. We also measured their knowledge of counting, and other factors that might impact performance on linguistic assessments of infinity belief (e.g., working memory, ability to respond to hypothetical questions). We found that beliefs about infinity were very high across all three domains, suggesting that infinity beliefs may arise early in development for space, time, and number. Second, we found that—across all three domains—children were more likely to believe that it is always possible to add a unit than to believe that the domain is endless. Finally, we found that understanding the rules underlying counting predicted children’s belief that it is always possible to add 1 to any number, but did not predict any of the other elements of infinity belief. MIT Press 2023-09-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10575555/ /pubmed/37840760 http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00104 Text en © 2023 Massachusetts Institute of Technology https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For a full description of the license, please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Research Article
Sullivan, Jessica
Cramer-Benjamin, Sophie
Alvarez, Joseph
Barner, David
Everything is Infinite: Children’s Beliefs About Endless Space, Time, and Number
title Everything is Infinite: Children’s Beliefs About Endless Space, Time, and Number
title_full Everything is Infinite: Children’s Beliefs About Endless Space, Time, and Number
title_fullStr Everything is Infinite: Children’s Beliefs About Endless Space, Time, and Number
title_full_unstemmed Everything is Infinite: Children’s Beliefs About Endless Space, Time, and Number
title_short Everything is Infinite: Children’s Beliefs About Endless Space, Time, and Number
title_sort everything is infinite: children’s beliefs about endless space, time, and number
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10575555/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37840760
http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00104
work_keys_str_mv AT sullivanjessica everythingisinfinitechildrensbeliefsaboutendlessspacetimeandnumber
AT cramerbenjaminsophie everythingisinfinitechildrensbeliefsaboutendlessspacetimeandnumber
AT alvarezjoseph everythingisinfinitechildrensbeliefsaboutendlessspacetimeandnumber
AT barnerdavid everythingisinfinitechildrensbeliefsaboutendlessspacetimeandnumber