Which button will I press? Preference for correctly ordered counting sequences in 18-month-olds.

Abstract

Correct counting respects the stable order principle whereby the count terms are recited in a fixed order every time. The 4 experiments reported here tested whether precounting infants recognize and prefer correct stable-ordered counting. The authors introduced a novel preference paradigm in which infants could freely press two buttons to activate videos of counting events. In the "correct" counting video, number words were always recited in the canonical order ("1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6"). The "incorrect" counting video was identical except that the number words were recited in a random order (e.g., "5, 3, 1, 6, 4, 2"). In Experiment 1, 18-month-olds (n = 21), but not 15-month-olds (n = 24), significantly preferred to press the button that activated correct counting events. Experiment 2 revealed that English-learning 18-month-olds' (n = 21) preference for stable-ordered counting disappeared when the counting was done in Japanese. By contrast, Experiment 3 showed that multilingual 18-month-olds (n = 24) preferred correct stable-ordered counting in an unfamiliar foreign language. In Experiment 4, multilingual 18-month-olds (N = 21) showed no preference for stable-ordered alphabet sequences, ruling out some alternative explanations for the Experiment 3 results. Overall these findings are consistent with the idea that implicit recognition of the stable order principle of counting is acquired by 18 months of age, and that learning more than one language may accelerate infants' understanding of abstract counting principles. (PsycINFO Database Record

Infants recognize counting as numerically relevant

“…Which aspects of the counting routine promote infants’ attention to number? Counting contains a variety of cues that infants might use to identify it as distinct from other verbal acts (Gelman & Gallistel, ; Ip et al ., ; Slaughter et al ., ). Alternatively, simply hearing each objects indicated with a distinct verbal label might have influenced infants’ performance, given that hearing distinctive labels has been found to help infants individuate objects (Xu, Cote, & Baker, ), and chunk objects into groups (Feigenson & Halberda, ).…”

“…Which aspects of counting do infants recognize, such that they deploy the ANS? By 18 months, infants detect violations of one‐to‐one correspondence and stable order in counting (Ip et al ., ; Slaughter et al ., )—one or both of these might need to be instantiated in a counting event for infants to activate the ANS. Alternatively, familiarity with actual count words in the sequence might be critical, rather than recognition of abstract counting principles.…”

“…Many children in Western cultures begin experiencing integer words starting in infancy, in the form of hearing parents or caregivers engage in verbal counting (Goldstein, Cole, & Cordes, ). By 18 months, infants are sensitive to some procedural aspects of counting, preferring to watch correct counting over counting that violates the principles of one‐to‐one correspondence or stable order (Ip, Imuta, & Slaughter, ; Slaughter, Itakura, Kutsuki, & Siegal, ). Yet, children apparently do not map between individual number words in the counting sequence and particular approximate numerosities until age 4 years or later.…”

What Counts? Sources of Knowledge in Children’s Acquisition of the Successor Function

“…Children learn the syntax of number words (Bloom & Wynn, 1997;Ionin & Matushansky, 2019), that they refer to properties of sets, rather than to specific objects (Huang, Spelke, & Snedeker, 2010), and the procedures and principles that govern counting (Fuson, 1988;Wynn, 1990Wynn, , 1992. Children begin this process early in development, with some studies suggesting sensitivity to both the principles (Ip, Imuta, & Slaughter, 2018) and numerical nature of the count list (Wang & Feigenson, 2019) by 18 months. Around 2 years of age, most US children are able to recite some portion of the count list in an unstructured fashion, similar to the ABCs (Fuson, 1988).…”

Measuring Emerging Number Knowledge in Toddlers

“…Although infants and toddlers may not fully understand the meaning of number words, recent work suggests they show an early sensitivity to counting. Eighteen-month-old infants showed a preference for correctly ordered counting sequences; that is, although they were unable to recite the count list themselves, they recognized and preferred to listen to the correct order of the number words ( Ip et al, 2018 ). Similarly, 14- to 18-month-old infants appear to be able to use their ability to recognize the count list to help them overcome typical memory limits ( Wang and Feigenson, 2019 ).…”