Development of spatial preferences for counting and picture naming

Abstract

The direction of object enumeration reflects children's enculturation but previous work on the development of such spatial preferences has been inconsistent. Therefore, we documented directional preferences in finger counting, object counting, and picture naming for children (4 groups from 3 to 6 years, N = 104) and adults (N = 56). We found a right-side preference for finger counting in 3-to 6-year-olds and a left-side preference for counting objects and naming pictures by 6 years of age. Children were consistent in their special preferences when comparing object counting and picture naming, but not in other task pairings. Finally, spatial preferences were not related to cardinality comprehension. These results, together with other recent work, suggest a gradual development of spatial-numerical associations from early non-directional mappings into culturally constrained directional mappings.

Playing Reading, Using Hands: Which Activities are Linked to Number-Space Processing in Preschool Children?

“…Finally, as suggested by some studies with children and adults (e.g. Knudsen et al, 2015;Rinaldi, Di Luca, Henik, & Girelli, 2016;Wasner et al, 2014), the direction of finger counting might be linked to a larger extent to body-related factors, like handedness, than to cultural reading conventions. On the other side, there is much diversity in the way numbers are encoded by fingers in different cultural societies (Bender & Beller, 2012).…”

“…Second, the direction of finger counting is less homogenous and less consistent with the commonly observed left-to-right spatial pattern revealed in other numerical tasks (for review and discussion see Previtali, Rinaldi, & Girelli, 2011;Bender & Beller, 2012). In fact, most studies conducted in Western societies point to the right-to-left preference (starting from the right thumb) as a dominant pattern among preschoolers (Knudsen et al, 2015;Newman & Soylu, 2014;Rinaldi, Gallucci, & Girelli, 2016;Sato & Lalain, 2008). This spatial pattern seems to prevail even in older children and adults (Knudsen et al, 2015;Wasner, Moeller, Fischer, & Nuerk, 2014), although it can be modulated by specific task settings (e.g.…”

“…In fact, most studies conducted in Western societies point to the right-to-left preference (starting from the right thumb) as a dominant pattern among preschoolers (Knudsen et al, 2015;Newman & Soylu, 2014;Rinaldi, Gallucci, & Girelli, 2016;Sato & Lalain, 2008). This spatial pattern seems to prevail even in older children and adults (Knudsen et al, 2015;Wasner, Moeller, Fischer, & Nuerk, 2014), although it can be modulated by specific task settings (e.g. filling out a questionnaire, Fischer, 2008;Lindemann et al, 2011) and vary between different populations (e.g.…”

“…Clearly, SNAs are not always formed consistently with cultural habits, especially not in preschool age. For instance, SNA can be oriented from right to left in a spontaneous finger counting task even in subjects from Western countries (Knudsen et al, 2015;Wasner et al, 2014). Also, the direction of object counting of preschoolers is not as cultureconsistent as in adults because many children still prefer to count from right to left (e.g.…”

“…For instance, one popular task to study SNA in preschoolers is object counting, in which children are asked to count tokens arranged in a horizontal row (Shaki, Fischer, & Göbel, 2012). Some researchers also analyze the direction in which children count with their fingers (Knudsen, Fischer, & Aschersleben, 2015;Rinaldi, Gallucci, & Girelli, 2016) or the speed of spatial responses to non-symbolic numerosities (Patro & Haman, 2012;Ebersbach, Luwel, & Verschaffel, 2014). Although all these tasks evaluate number-space interactions to a certain extent, they might in fact rely on different aspects of space and number processing.…”