Counting many as one: Young children can understand sets as units except when counting.
J Exp Child Psychol
; 225: 105533, 2023 01.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36049249
ABSTRACT
Young children frequently make a peculiar counting mistake. When asked to count units that are sets of multiple items, such as the number of families at a party, they often count discrete items (i.e., individual people) rather than the number of sets (i.e., families). One explanation concerns children's incomplete understanding of what constitutes a unit, resulting in a preference for discrete items. Here we demonstrate that children's incomplete understanding of counting also plays a role. In an experiment with 4- and 5-year-old children (N = 43), we found that even if children are able to name sets, group items into sets, and create one-to-one correspondences with sets, many children are nevertheless unable to count sets as units. We conclude that a nascent understanding of the abstraction principle of counting is also a cause of some children's counting errors.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Desarrollo Infantil
/
Formación de Concepto
Límite:
Child, preschool
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Año:
2023
Tipo del documento:
Article