Abstract
Investigating infants’ numerical ability is crucial to identifying the developmental origins of numeracy. Wynn (1992) claimed that 5-month-old infants understand addition and subtraction as indicated by longer looking at outcomes that violate numerical operations (i.e., 1+1=1 and 2−1=2). However, Wynn’s claim was contentious, with others suggesting that her results might reflect a familiarity preference for the initial array or that they could be explained in terms of object tracking. To cast light on this controversy, Wynn’s conditions were replicated with conventional looking time supplemented with eye-tracker data. In the incorrect outcome of 2 in a subtraction event (2−1=2), infants looked selectively at the incorrectly present object, a finding that is not predicted by an initial array preference account or a symbolic numerical account but that is consistent with a perceptual object tracking account. It appears that young infants can track at least one object over occlusion, and this may form the precursor of numerical ability.
Highlights
Numeracy is a key aspect of adult cognition, and identifying its origins is vital to understanding its development during childhood and thereafter
Using Applied Science Laboratories’ Eyenal software, we reduced the raw data to a list of fixations, and the data analyzed consisted of dwell times in areas of interest (AOIs) that comprised the regions surrounding the two men on the stage
Our key finding from use of the eye tracker is that infants looked reliably longer at the left-hand man in the subtraction violation two-toy outcome than in the addition correct two-toy outcome
Summary
Numeracy is a key aspect of adult cognition, and identifying its origins is vital to understanding its development during childhood and thereafter. One strong claim is that young infants compute the outcomes of addition and subtraction manipulations. This was first suggested in a study by Wynn (1992). In a subtraction (2 À 1) condition, infants saw two dolls being placed on the stage followed by the screen concealing them. For both conditions the screen was raised, revealing either one doll or two dolls. In both conditions, infants looked longer at the impossible outcome (either 1 + 1 = 1 or 2 À 1 = 2) than at the possible outcome (either 1 + 1 = 2 or 2 À 1 = 1), with longer looking being interpreted as a violation of their expectation regarding the numerical outcome. Replications of Wynn’s findings have used both three-dimensional displays (Clearfield & Westfahl, 2006; Simon, Hespos, & Rochat, 1995; Slater, Bremner, Johnson, & Hayes, 2010; Uller, Carey, Huntley-Fenner, & Klatt, 1999; Walden, Kim, McCoy, & Karrass, 2007) and two-dimensional displays (Berger, Tzur, & Posner, 2006; Moore & Cocas, 2006)
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