The Idea of an Exact Number: Children's Understanding of Cardinality and Equinumerosity

Overview

Journal Cogn Sci

Specialty Psychology

Date 2013 May 16

PMID 23672476

Citations 9

Authors

Barbara W Sarnecka

Charles E Wright

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Understanding what numbers are means knowing several things. It means knowing how counting relates to numbers (called the cardinal principle or cardinality); it means knowing that each number is generated by adding one to the previous number (called the successor function or succession), and it means knowing that all and only sets whose members can be placed in one-to-one correspondence have the same number of items (called exact equality or equinumerosity). A previous study (Sarnecka & Carey, 2008) linked children's understanding of cardinality to their understanding of succession for the numbers five and six. This study investigates the link between cardinality and equinumerosity for these numbers, finding that children either understand both cardinality and equinumerosity or they understand neither. This suggests that cardinality and equinumerosity (along with succession) are interrelated facets of the concepts five and six, the acquisition of which is an important conceptual achievement of early childhood.

Citing Articles

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One-to-one correspondence without language.

Koopman S, Arre A, Piantadosi S, Cantlon J R Soc Open Sci. 2019; 6(10):190495.

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Configured-groups hypothesis: fast comparison of exact large quantities without counting.

Miravete S, Tricot A, Kalyuga S, Amadieu F Cogn Process. 2017; 18(4):447-459.

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