Abstract
Does number–word structure have a long-lasting impact on transcoding? Contrary to English, German number words comprise decade–unit inversion (e.g., vierundzwanzig is literally translated as four-and-twenty). To investigate the mental representation of numbers, we tested the effect of visual and linguistic–morphological characteristics on the development of verbal–visual transcoding. In a longitudinal cross-linguistic design, response times (RTs) in a number-matching experiment were analyzed in Grade 2 (119 German-speaking and 179 English-speaking children) and in Grade 3 (131 German-speaking and 160 English-speaking children). To test for long-term effects, the same experiment was given to 38 German-speaking and 42 English-speaking adults. Participants needed to decide whether a spoken number matched a subsequent visual Arabic number. Systematic variation of digits in the nonmatching distractors allowed comparison of three different transcoding accounts (lexicalization, visual, and linguistic–morphological). German speakers were generally slower in rejecting inverted number distractors than English speakers. Across age groups, German speakers were more distracted by Arabic numbers that included the correct unit digit, whereas English speakers showed stronger distraction when the correct decade digit was included. These RT patterns reflect differences in number–word morphology. The individual cost of rejecting an inverted distractor (inversion effect) predicted arithmetic skills in German-speaking second-graders only. The moderate relationship between the efficiency to identify a matching number and arithmetic performance could be observed cross-linguistically in all age groups but was not significant in German-speaking adults. Thus, findings provide consistent evidence of a persistent impact of number–word structure on number processing, whereas the relationship with arithmetic performance was particularly pronounced in young children.
Highlights
When we see the Arabic number 24, we cannot help but coactivate the corresponding number word twenty-four
We explored whether the efficiency with which participants processed decade–unit inversion was related to their arithmetic performance by relating the specific cost to reject an inverted number with arithmetic performance
Our findings support the idea that the process of transcoding two-digit numbers is driven by language-specific number–word structure
Summary
When we see the Arabic number 24, we cannot help but coactivate the corresponding number word twenty-four. It is still a matter of debate how we shift from one symbolic number representation to another and how this cross-modal shifting develops during childhood, especially in the case of multidigit numbers. The auditory–verbal word frame relies on a general-purpose language module and manipulates spoken number words, the visual Arabic number form processes numbers in Arabic notation, and the analogue magnitude code represents number semantics as abstract numerical quantities. The Arabic number system is used in most languages today (Chrisomalis, 2010), number–word structure is language dependent and not always consistent with Arabic multidigits. An important and common discrepancy is the inversion rule (e.g., German, Dutch, Slovenian), requiring to reverse the order of decades and units (e.g., 24 is literally pronounced as four-and-twenty)
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