Of Huge Mice and Tiny Elephants: Exploring the Relationship Between Inhibitory Processes and Preschool Math Skills

Abstract

The cognitive mechanisms underpinning the well-established relationship between inhibitory control and early maths skills remain unclear. We hypothesized that a specific aspect of inhibitory control drives its association with distinct math skills in very young children: the ability to ignore stimulus dimensions that are in conflict with task-relevant representations. We used an Animal Size Stroop task in which 3- to 6-year-olds were required to ignore the physical size of animal pictures to compare their real-life dimensions. In Experiment 1 (N = 58), performance on this task correlated with standardized early mathematics achievement. In Experiment 2 (N = 48), performance on the Animal Size Stroop task related to the accuracy of magnitude comparison, specifically for trials on which the physical size of dot arrays was incongruent with their numerosity. This highlights a process-oriented relationship between interference control and resolving conflict between discrete and continuous quantity, and in turn calls for further detailed empirical investigations of whether, how and why inhibitory processes matter to emerging numerical cognition.

Dyscalculia and Typical Math Achievement Are Associated With Individual Differences in Number‐Specific Executive Function

“…For example, Dark and Benbow (Dark & Benbow, 1994) found that working memory tasks with numerical stimuli were more closely related to mathematical precocity than non-numerical stimuli across a range of tasks in adults. Similarly, studies of children have demonstrated that inhibitory control and working memory of numerical information accounts for significant variance in individual differences in mathematics ability and early numeracy beyond similar non-numerical measures of executive function (Bull & Scerif, 2001;Merkley, Thompson, & Scerif, 2016).…”

Inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescence

“…Most previous research exploring the cognitive processes behind science and maths misconceptions has been performed on children [ 12 , 16 , 19 – 21 ] or adults [ 13 , 14 , 17 ]. The current study investigated the role of inhibitory control in counterintuitive reasoning, i.e.…”

Maybe, maybe not: Probabilistic reasoning in preschool period

“…Similarly, there are many studies claiming that gender-based differentiation in different math skills did not occur significantly in the pre-school period and begins after 7-8 years of age (Williams, White & MacDonald, 2016;Merkley, Thompson & Scerif, 2016;Purpura, Reid, Eiland & Baroody, 2015) The effect of age-related development in assessing the probabilistic reasoning is also seen in this study -as in many different types of research (Gonzalez & Girotto, 2011;Ergül, 2014;Liu & Chou, 2015). Even the youngest children in the study group were found to have intuitive probability considerations, but the correct response rates of older children were found to be higher.…”