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Arguments against non-numerical accounts of infants' numerical competence
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ARGUMENTS
ACCOUNTS OF INPANTS NUMERICALCOMPEENCE
AGAINST NON-NUMERICAL
Karen Wynn Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 Infants have been shown able to discriminate different numbers of entities, ranging from visual items (e.g., Starkey 8z Cooper, 1980) to sounds (Starkey, Spelke & Gelman, 1990) to physical actions (Wynn, 1996). They can also anticipate the result of an addition or removal of an object from a small collection of objects (Wynn, 1992; Simon, 1995; KoechIin, Dehaene & Mehler, in press; Moore, in press). This has been taken as evidence that infants possess a specialized mental structure dedicated to representing and reasoning about number (Wynn, 1992, 1995). Recently, however, several researchers (Carey, 1997; Dehaene et al., in press; Simon, in press; Sophian, in press) have proposed ahemative explanations for these abilities. Other presenters in this symposium present these alternatives, proposing that infants’ numerical competence may result not from proeesses specific to numerical competence but from more general object-tracking processes, such as the employment of “object files” (e.g., Kahneman, Triesman & Gibbs, 1992) or the functioning of certain components of early visual processing (e.g., Trick & Pylyshyn, 1994). In this talk, 1 evaluate these alternative accounts and defend the view that infants’ competence is specifically numerical in nature. There are problems with the alternative kind of account. The particular theories of object-tracking appealed to are not sufficient to account for the results they are recruited to explain; they are incomplete. In order to satisfactorily account for these results, additional assumptions for which there is of yet little or no empirical support must be made. Moreover, they make predictions which are inconsistent with some experimental findings. These problems with object-tracking accounts of infants’ abilities suggest that infants’ competence is best explained by the existence of a number-specific cognitive mechanism.
ARGUMENTS
ACCOUNTS OF INPANTS NUMERICALCOMPEENCE
AGAINST NON-NUMERICAL
Karen Wynn Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 Infants have been shown able to discriminate different numbers of entities, ranging from visual items (e.g., Starkey 8z Cooper, 1980) to sounds (Starkey, Spelke & Gelman, 1990) to physical actions (Wynn, 1996). They can also anticipate the result of an addition or removal of an object from a small collection of objects (Wynn, 1992; Simon, 1995; KoechIin, Dehaene & Mehler, in press; Moore, in press). This has been taken as evidence that infants possess a specialized mental structure dedicated to representing and reasoning about number (Wynn, 1992, 1995). Recently, however, several researchers (Carey, 1997; Dehaene et al., in press; Simon, in press; Sophian, in press) have proposed ahemative explanations for these abilities. Other presenters in this symposium present these alternatives, proposing that infants’ numerical competence may result not from proeesses specific to numerical competence but from more general object-tracking processes, such as the employment of “object files” (e.g., Kahneman, Triesman & Gibbs, 1992) or the functioning of certain components of early visual processing (e.g., Trick & Pylyshyn, 1994). In this talk, 1 evaluate these alternative accounts and defend the view that infants’ competence is specifically numerical in nature. There are problems with the alternative kind of account. The particular theories of object-tracking appealed to are not sufficient to account for the results they are recruited to explain; they are incomplete. In order to satisfactorily account for these results, additional assumptions for which there is of yet little or no empirical support must be made. Moreover, they make predictions which are inconsistent with some experimental findings. These problems with object-tracking accounts of infants’ abilities suggest that infants’ competence is best explained by the existence of a number-specific cognitive mechanism.