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Domain‐specific and domain‐general changes in children's development of number comparison
Abstract
The numerical distance effect (inverse relationship between numerical distance and reaction time in relative number comparison tasks) has frequently been used to characterize the mental representation of number. The size of the distance effect decreases over developmental time. However, it is unclear whether this reduction simply reflects developmental changes in domain-general speed of processing and whether it is specific to numerical compared with non-numerical magnitude. To examine these open questions, we conducted a cross-sectional study with 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old children as well as adult college students. Participants performed comparisons on Arabic numerals, arrays of squares, squares of varying luminance and bars of varying height. To control for general age-related changes in reaction time, a measure of speed of processing was used as a covariate in the analysis. A significant developmental decrease in the distance effect was found across numerical and non-numerical comparison tasks over and above general changes in processing speed. However, this change was not found to differ as a function of format. These data suggest that developmental changes in the distance effect are reflective of changes in a domain-general comparison process, rather than domain-specific developmental changes in number representations. However, analysis of overall reaction times revealed significantly greater developmental changes for numerical relative to non-numerical comparison tasks. T…
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“previous studies showed that performance on this task was related to math achievement (Holloway & Ansari, 2008;Sasanguie et al., 2013).”
From Testing the Effects of GraphoGame Against a Computer-Assisted Math Intervention in Primary School (2022) · cites this paper as Holloway & Ansari, 2008
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Metadata
- Authors
- Holloway, I. D., & Ansari, D.
- Affiliations
- Western University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Ansari, Daniel
- ORCID
- Ansari, Daniel
- Venue
- Developmental Science
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2008-08-12
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 644-649
- ISSN
- 1363-755X (ISSN-L)
- 1467-7687
- OpenAlex
- W2151164734
- Cited by
- 153
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 11.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Developmental Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Keywords
- numerical distance effect, numerical comparison, numerical cognition, numerical magnitude processing, domain-general processing, processing speed, child cognitive development, Arabic numerals, reaction time, number representation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Attention, Child, Child Development, Cognition, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Mathematics, Problem Solving, Psychological Tests, Reaction Time
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