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Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later School Mathematics Performance
The Approximate Number System (ANS) is a primitive mental system of nonverbal representations that supports an intuitive sense of number in human adults, children, infants, and other animal species. The numerical approximations produced by the ANS are characteristically imprecise and, in humans, thi...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2011
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3173357/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21935362 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023749 |
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author | Mazzocco, Michèle M. M. Feigenson, Lisa Halberda, Justin |
author_facet | Mazzocco, Michèle M. M. Feigenson, Lisa Halberda, Justin |
author_sort | Mazzocco, Michèle M. M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The Approximate Number System (ANS) is a primitive mental system of nonverbal representations that supports an intuitive sense of number in human adults, children, infants, and other animal species. The numerical approximations produced by the ANS are characteristically imprecise and, in humans, this precision gradually improves from infancy to adulthood. Throughout development, wide ranging individual differences in ANS precision are evident within age groups. These individual differences have been linked to formal mathematics outcomes, based on concurrent, retrospective, or short-term longitudinal correlations observed during the school age years. However, it remains unknown whether this approximate number sense actually serves as a foundation for these school mathematics abilities. Here we show that ANS precision measured at preschool, prior to formal instruction in mathematics, selectively predicts performance on school mathematics at 6 years of age. In contrast, ANS precision does not predict non-numerical cognitive abilities. To our knowledge, these results provide the first evidence for early ANS precision, measured before the onset of formal education, predicting later mathematical abilities. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3173357 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2011 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-31733572011-09-20 Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later School Mathematics Performance Mazzocco, Michèle M. M. Feigenson, Lisa Halberda, Justin PLoS One Research Article The Approximate Number System (ANS) is a primitive mental system of nonverbal representations that supports an intuitive sense of number in human adults, children, infants, and other animal species. The numerical approximations produced by the ANS are characteristically imprecise and, in humans, this precision gradually improves from infancy to adulthood. Throughout development, wide ranging individual differences in ANS precision are evident within age groups. These individual differences have been linked to formal mathematics outcomes, based on concurrent, retrospective, or short-term longitudinal correlations observed during the school age years. However, it remains unknown whether this approximate number sense actually serves as a foundation for these school mathematics abilities. Here we show that ANS precision measured at preschool, prior to formal instruction in mathematics, selectively predicts performance on school mathematics at 6 years of age. In contrast, ANS precision does not predict non-numerical cognitive abilities. To our knowledge, these results provide the first evidence for early ANS precision, measured before the onset of formal education, predicting later mathematical abilities. Public Library of Science 2011-09-14 /pmc/articles/PMC3173357/ /pubmed/21935362 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023749 Text en Mazzocco et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Mazzocco, Michèle M. M. Feigenson, Lisa Halberda, Justin Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later School Mathematics Performance |
title | Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later School Mathematics Performance |
title_full | Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later School Mathematics Performance |
title_fullStr | Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later School Mathematics Performance |
title_full_unstemmed | Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later School Mathematics Performance |
title_short | Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later School Mathematics Performance |
title_sort | preschoolers' precision of the approximate number system predicts later school mathematics performance |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3173357/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21935362 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023749 |
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