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Grouping strategies in number estimation extend the subitizing range

When asked to estimate the number of items in a visual array, educated adults and children are more precise and rapid if the items are clustered into small subgroups rather than randomly distributed. This phenomenon, termed “groupitizing”, is thought to rely on the recruitment of the subitizing syst...

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Autores principales: Maldonado Moscoso, Paula A., Castaldi, Elisa, Burr, David C., Arrighi, Roberto, Anobile, Giovanni
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7486368/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32917941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71871-5
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author Maldonado Moscoso, Paula A.
Castaldi, Elisa
Burr, David C.
Arrighi, Roberto
Anobile, Giovanni
author_facet Maldonado Moscoso, Paula A.
Castaldi, Elisa
Burr, David C.
Arrighi, Roberto
Anobile, Giovanni
author_sort Maldonado Moscoso, Paula A.
collection PubMed
description When asked to estimate the number of items in a visual array, educated adults and children are more precise and rapid if the items are clustered into small subgroups rather than randomly distributed. This phenomenon, termed “groupitizing”, is thought to rely on the recruitment of the subitizing system (dedicated to the perception of very small numbers), with the aid of simple arithmetical calculations. The aim of current study is to verify whether the advantage for clustered stimuli does rely on subitizing, by manipulating attention, known to strongly affect attention. Participants estimated the numerosity of grouped or ungrouped arrays in condition of full attention or while attention was diverted with a dual-task. Depriving visual attention strongly decreased estimation precision of grouped but not of ungrouped arrays, as well as increasing the tendency for numerosity estimation to regress towards the mean. Additional explorative analyses suggested that calculation skills correlated with the estimation precision of grouped, but not of ungrouped, arrays. The results suggest that groupitizing is an attention-based process that leverages on the subitizing system. They also suggest that measuring numerosity estimation thresholds with grouped stimuli may be a sensitive correlate of math abilities.
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spelling pubmed-74863682020-09-15 Grouping strategies in number estimation extend the subitizing range Maldonado Moscoso, Paula A. Castaldi, Elisa Burr, David C. Arrighi, Roberto Anobile, Giovanni Sci Rep Article When asked to estimate the number of items in a visual array, educated adults and children are more precise and rapid if the items are clustered into small subgroups rather than randomly distributed. This phenomenon, termed “groupitizing”, is thought to rely on the recruitment of the subitizing system (dedicated to the perception of very small numbers), with the aid of simple arithmetical calculations. The aim of current study is to verify whether the advantage for clustered stimuli does rely on subitizing, by manipulating attention, known to strongly affect attention. Participants estimated the numerosity of grouped or ungrouped arrays in condition of full attention or while attention was diverted with a dual-task. Depriving visual attention strongly decreased estimation precision of grouped but not of ungrouped arrays, as well as increasing the tendency for numerosity estimation to regress towards the mean. Additional explorative analyses suggested that calculation skills correlated with the estimation precision of grouped, but not of ungrouped, arrays. The results suggest that groupitizing is an attention-based process that leverages on the subitizing system. They also suggest that measuring numerosity estimation thresholds with grouped stimuli may be a sensitive correlate of math abilities. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-09-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7486368/ /pubmed/32917941 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71871-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Maldonado Moscoso, Paula A.
Castaldi, Elisa
Burr, David C.
Arrighi, Roberto
Anobile, Giovanni
Grouping strategies in number estimation extend the subitizing range
title Grouping strategies in number estimation extend the subitizing range
title_full Grouping strategies in number estimation extend the subitizing range
title_fullStr Grouping strategies in number estimation extend the subitizing range
title_full_unstemmed Grouping strategies in number estimation extend the subitizing range
title_short Grouping strategies in number estimation extend the subitizing range
title_sort grouping strategies in number estimation extend the subitizing range
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7486368/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32917941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71871-5
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