How to rapidly construct a spatial–numerical representation in preliterate children (at least temporarily)

Abstract

Spatial processing of numbers has emerged as one of the basic properties of humans' mathematical thinking. However, how and when number-space relations develop is a highly contested issue. One dominant view has been that a link between numbers and left/right spatial directions is constructed based on directional experience associated with reading and writing. However, some early forms of a number-space link have been observed in preschool children who cannot yet read and write. As literacy experience is evidently not necessary for number-space effects, we are searching for other potential sources of this association. Here we propose and test a hypothesis that the number-space link can be quickly constructed in preschool children's cognition on the basis of spatially oriented visuo-motor activities. We trained 3- and 4-year-old children with a non-numerical spatial movement task (left-to-right or right-to-left), where via touch screen children had to move a frog across a pond. After the training, children had to perform a numerosity comparison task. After left-to-right training, we observed a SNARC-like effect (reactions to smaller numbers were faster on the left side, and reactions to larger numbers on the right side), and after right-to-left training a reverse effect. These results are the first to show a causal link between visuo-motor activities and number-space associations in children before they learn to read and write. We argue that simple activities, such as manual games, dominant in a given society, might shape number-space associations in children in a way similar to lifelong reading training.

Space in numerical and ordinal information: A common construct?

“…One preliminary conclusion from these studies could be the availability of multiple spatial codes and a flexible attainment of those depending on task contexts, for instance in different associations of ordinalities and cardinalities with spatial directions (Patro, Nuerk, Cress, & Haman, 2014). Experimentally, this idea is supported by a reported visuo-motor directional training experience in preliterate children that modulated non-symbolic space-magnitude associations (a cardinal SNARC-like effect), but had no impact on ordinal counting directions (Patro, Fischer, Nuerk, & Cress, 2016). …”

How do different aspects of spatial skills relate to early arithmetic and number line estimation?

“…A strong interaction between space encoding and number processing is suggested by brain imaging studies (Cutini, Scarpa, Scatturin, Dell'Acqua, & Zorzi, 2014;Göbel, Calabria, Farnè, & Rossetti, 2006;Goffaux, Martin, Dormal, Goebel, & Schiltz, 2012;Ranzini, Dehaene, Piazza, & Hubbard, 2009) and behavioural studies (Dehaene et al, 1993;Hoffmann, Mussolin, Martin, & Schiltz, 2014;Nuerk, Wood, & Willmes, 2005). In recent years, this interaction has also been investigated in young children, prior formal schooling (de Hevia & Spelke, 2009;Hoffmann, Hornung, Martin, & Schiltz, 2013;Patro, Fischer, Nuerk, & Cress, 2016;Patro & Haman, 2012;Patro, Nuerk, Cress, & Haman, 2014).…”

Playing Reading, Using Hands: Which Activities are Linked to Number-Space Processing in Preschool Children?

“…Although early predispositions to link number processing to spatial preferences may primarily function on a more general level, only some sort of systematic cultural training might shape this link in a consistently left-to-right direction. In a study by Patro, Fischer, Nuerk and Cress (2016), preschoolers formed a SNARC-like effect in different directions, depending on whether they were trained beforehand to move an object to the right or to the left. Apparently, the direction of numerosity-to-space mapping in preschool children is flexible and susceptible to spatial experience of different kinds and of different directionality, and this might account for the large variability of individual SNARC-like patterns observed in this age group.…”