Across two experiments, we investigated how verbal labels impact the way young children attend to proportional information, well before the introduction of formal fraction education. Five- to seven-year-old children were introduced to equivalent non-symbolic proportions labeled in one of three ways: (a) a single, categorical label for multiple…

This study explored whether kindergarteners who had yet to learn about multi-digit numbers at school could automatically process the underlying magnitudes, i.e., place-values, represented by the digits in a multi-digit number. A place-value Stroop task showed a pair of price tags in each trial. Each price tag contained a three-digit number, of…

Although many researchers theorize that primitive numerosity processing abilities may lay the foundation for whole number concepts, other classes of numbers, like fractions, are sometimes assumed to be inaccessible to primitive architectures. This research presents evidence that the automatic processing of nonsymbolic magnitudes affects processing…

This study investigated if developmental dyscalculia (DD) in children with different profiles of mathematical deficits has the same or different cognitive origins. The defective approximate number system hypothesis and the access deficit hypothesis were tested using two different groups of children with DD (11-13 years old): a group with…

Formal algebras are among the most powerful and general mechanisms for expressing quantitative relational statements; yet, even university engineering students, who are relatively proficient with algebraic manipulation, struggle with and often fail to correctly deploy basic aspects of algebraic notation (Clement, 1982). In the cognitive tradition,…

The present study tested the "interference hypothesis"-that learning and using more advanced representations and strategies requires the inhibition of prior, less advanced ones. Specifically, it examined the relation between inhibitory control and number line estimation performance. Experiment 1 compared the accuracy of adults' (N = 53)…