Number is important for almost everything we do as adult humans. Where does our quantitative mind originate? Previous research by Dr. Brannon and others has shown that very young infants can discriminate sets of items based on number alone. Despite the abundance of evidence that now demonstrates that infants have rudimentary abilities to perceive numerical differences, we do not yet understand whether or how these capacities relate to later mathematical cognition. The focus of this project is to ask whether nonverbal numerical abilities that emerge early in human development serve as a foundation for learning mathematics. To answer these questions Dr. Brannon and her research team have developed a new procedure that quantifies an individual infant's ability to see numerical differences. The procedure involves presenting babies with two streams of numerical images. One of the streams features a constant number of dots in each image; however, the images vary in the location and size of the dots. The other image features two different numerical values that alternate. Infants prefer to look at the changing numerical stream and the magnitude of their preference for the changing stream depends on the ratio between the two values in that stream. The project will use a longitudinal design to look at the relationship between numerical discrimination abilities in 6-month-old babies and later numerical discrimination and math concepts in the same children at 3.5 and 4.5 years of age. A large sample of 6-month-old infants will first be tested in the new numerical change detection task. The same infants will be tested in a variety of nonverbal numerical discrimination tasks at 9 and 18 months and then in both verbal and nonverbal numerical tasks at 3.5 and 4.5 years of age.
This project will provide a foundation for understanding the relationship between numerical abilities in infancy and later childhood. Establishing a link between rudimentary numerical abilities in infancy and later developing mathematical abilities could provide an important avenue for identifying early mathematics difficulties and developing interventions to address these difficulties.
