Detection of counting pseudoerrors: What helps children accept them?

Abstract

This study examines children's comprehension of non-essential counting features (conventional rules). The objective of the study was to determine whether the presence or absence of cardinal values in pseudoerrors and the type of conventional rule violated affects children's performance. A detection task with pseudoerrors was presented through a computer game to 146 primary school children in grades 2 through 4. The same pseudoerrors were presented both with and without cardinal values; the pseudoerrors violated conventional rules of spatial adjacency, temporal adjacency, spatial-temporal adjacency, and left-to-right direction. Half of the participants within each age group were randomly assigned to an experimental condition that included pseudoerrors with a cardinal value, and the other half were assigned to a condition that included pseudoerrors without a cardinal value. The results show that when presented with a cardinal value, children more easily recognize the optional nature of non-essential counting features. Likewise, the type of conventional rule transgressed significantly affected the children's acceptance of pseudoerrors as valid counts. Participants penalized breaches of temporal and spatial-temporal adjacency to a greater degree than breaches of spatial adjacency and left-to-right direction.

Children’s learning from others: Conformity to unconventional counting

“…The mean percentage of rejected pseudoerrors before listening to the testimony reached 70.4% of trials, which is comparable to the 73.7% obtained by Rodríguez, Lago, Enesco, and Guerrero (2013) with children of similar ages. Furthermore, the results are consistent with those obtained in other studies regarding the justifications provided by the children when rejecting the pseudoerrors (e.g., Lago et al, 2016; Rodríguez et al, 2013). They also confirm that understanding of the optional nature of the conventional rules of counting continues to develop beyond the early years of primary education, as suggested by several authors (e.g., Escudero et al, 2015; LeFevre et al, 2006; Kamawar et al, 2010).…”

“…In overall terms, our findings lend support to those of other studies suggesting that in certain conditions children may be less inflexible when judging unconventional counts (Escudero et al, 2015; Lago et al, 2016; Rodríguez et al, 2013). Our findings also provide further evidence in support of the idea that trust in the testimony of others is key as a source of learning and this trust is enhanced when it is placed in a unanimous majority (Bernard et al, 2015; Corriveau et al, 2009; Morgan et al, 2015).…”

“…Taken together, findings of previous research show that acceptance of the violation of the conventional counting rules (known as pseudoerrors or correct unconventional counts in the scientific literature) varies according to the conventional rule infringed, with those violating the rules of left-to-right direction and spatial adjacency being more accessible than those violating temporal and temporal–spatial adjacency (Lago et al, 2016). The degree of acceptance of pseudoerrors is greater when children are asked to simply accept or reject pseudoerrors than when they are required to justify their response (Escudero et al, 2015).…”

“…In other words, a child’s conceptual advance in this area depends on their understanding of the relative value of conventional counting rules compared with the essential nature of logical rules. However, as demonstrated in several studies, even at relatively advanced ages (8–9 years) this distinction is difficult and many children hold erroneous ideas on the nature of both types of rules (Escudero, Rodríguez, Lago, & Enesco, 2015; Kamawar et al, 2010; Lago, Rodríguez, Escudero, & Dopico, 2016; LeFevre et al, 2006; Rodríguez, Lago, Enesco, & Guerrero, 2013), although their performance may vary according to the circumstances or variables of a certain task.…”

The Relationship Between Confidence and Conformity in a Non-routine Counting Task With Young Children: Dedicated to the Memory of Purificación Rodríguez

“…Empirical evidence with the detection paradigm has demonstrated that children have misconceptions about the non-essential nature of conventional counting rules even well into primary school (LeFevre et al, 2006;Kamawar et al, 2010;Rodríguez et al, 2013;Escudero et al, 2015;Lago et al, 2016Lago et al, , 2019. In these studies, children observed a character performing standard correct counts (that comply both with logical and conventional rules), erroneous counts (which break logical rules), and pseudoerrors (not conventional but correct counts that respect logical rules) and were asked to evaluate the correctness of their performance.…”