We presented a quantity judgment task that involved comparing two sequentially presented sets of items to preschoolers and chimpanzees using nearly identical procedures that excluded verbal instructions to children. T...We presented a quantity judgment task that involved comparing two sequentially presented sets of items to preschoolers and chimpanzees using nearly identical procedures that excluded verbal instructions to children. Trial difficulty in this task reflected the ratio difference between sets of discrete items where larger ratios （e.g., 0.80 as from comparing 4 to 5） were more difficult than smaller ones （e.g., 0.50 as from comparing 4 to 8）. Children also completed verbal-based tasks probing the relationskip between counting proficiency and performance on the quantity judgment task of sequentially presented identical sized items. Both species＇ performance was best when ratios between comparison sets were small regardless of set size in all types of tasks. Generally, chimpanzees and older children performed better than younger children except at larger ratios. Children＇s counting proficiency was not related to success in choosing the larger of two quantities of identical-sized items. These results indicate that chimpanzees and children share an approximate number sense that is reflected through analog magnitude estimation when comparing quantities [Current Zoology 57 （4）： 419-428, 2011].展开更多
基金We wish to acknowledge the staff at the Berry College Child Development Center and Georgia State University Language Research Center for their support in data collection. Research with chimpanzees was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health （HD 38051 and HD 060563） and the National Science Foundation （BCS 0924811）. The authors thank Mary Beran and John Kelley for their assistance in conducting experimental sessions with chimpanzees, and the staff at the Berry College Child Development Center for data collection with preschoolers. We thank Carla Moldavan for helpful comments pertaining to early childhood mathematical curricula.
文摘We presented a quantity judgment task that involved comparing two sequentially presented sets of items to preschoolers and chimpanzees using nearly identical procedures that excluded verbal instructions to children. Trial difficulty in this task reflected the ratio difference between sets of discrete items where larger ratios （e.g., 0.80 as from comparing 4 to 5） were more difficult than smaller ones （e.g., 0.50 as from comparing 4 to 8）. Children also completed verbal-based tasks probing the relationskip between counting proficiency and performance on the quantity judgment task of sequentially presented identical sized items. Both species＇ performance was best when ratios between comparison sets were small regardless of set size in all types of tasks. Generally, chimpanzees and older children performed better than younger children except at larger ratios. Children＇s counting proficiency was not related to success in choosing the larger of two quantities of identical-sized items. These results indicate that chimpanzees and children share an approximate number sense that is reflected through analog magnitude estimation when comparing quantities [Current Zoology 57 （4）： 419-428, 2011].
