作为成年人,我们代表并思考数字,空间,和时间至少在两个方面:我们的直觉但不精确的感知表示,和学习缓慢但精确的数字单词。随着发展,这些代表性格式接口,允许我们使用精确的数字词来估计不精确的感知经验。我们测试了这个发展里程碑的两个说法。要形成接口,需要缓慢学习的关联,预测与典型经验的偏差(例如,新单元或未实践维度的呈现)将破坏儿童将数字词映射到他们的感知体验的能力,或者儿童对数字词和感知表示之间的逻辑相似性的理解,使他们能够灵活地将这个界面扩展到新的体验(例如,单位和尺寸他们还没有学会如何正式测量)。5-11岁的孩子完成了三个维度的口头估计和知觉敏感性任务:数量,长度,和面积。为了口头估计,他们被赋予了新的单位(即,一个名为“toma”的三点单位,代表数字,一条44px长的线,称为“长度”,一个111px2blob称为一个“modi”代表Area),并要求估计当显示一组较大的点时,他们看到了多少个tomas/blbelets/modies,线条,和斑点。孩子们可以灵活地将数字单词链接到跨维度的新颖单元,显示正估计斜率,即使是长度和面积,年幼的孩子有有限的经验。这表明结构映射的逻辑可以在感知维度上动态利用,即使没有丰富的经验。
As adults, we represent and think about number, space, and time in at least two ways: our intuitive-but imprecise-perceptual representations, and the slowly learned-but precise-number words. With development, these representational formats interface, allowing us to use precise number words to estimate imprecise perceptual experiences. We test two accounts of this developmental milestone. Either slowly learned associations are required for the interface to form, predicting that deviations from typical experiences (e.g., presentation of a novel unit or unpracticed dimension) will disrupt children\'s ability to map number words to their perceptual experiences or children\'s understanding of the logical similarity between number words and perceptual representations allows them to flexibly extend this interface to novel experiences (e.g., units and dimensions they have not yet learned how to formally measure). 5-11-year-olds completed verbal estimation and perceptual sensitivity tasks across three dimensions: Number, Length, and Area. For verbal estimation, they were given novel units (i.e., a three-dot unit called one \"toma\" for Number, a 44 px long line called one \"blicket\" for Length, a 111 px2 blob called one \"modi\" for Area) and asked to estimate how many tomas/blickets/modies they saw when shown a larger set of dots, lines, and blobs. Children could flexibly link number words to novel units across dimensions, demonstrating positive estimation slopes, even for Length and Area, which younger children had limited experience with. This suggests that the logic of structure mapping can be dynamically utilized across perceptual dimensions, even without extensive experience.