Units-first or tens-first: Does language matter when processing visually presented two-digit numbers?
The linguistic structure of number words can influence performance in basic numerical tasks such as mental calculation, magnitude comparison, and transcoding. Especially the presence of ten-unit inversion in number words seems to affect number processing. Thus, at the beginning of formal math educat...
| Published in: | Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Vol. 73; no. 5; pp. 726 - 739 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
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Sage Publications Inc.
May2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=142774461&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 142774461 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 17470218 1US5 jtl: Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology issn: 17470218 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: May2020 vid: 73 iid: 5 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. artinfo: ui: 142774461 10.1177/1747021819892165 ppf: 726 ppct: 13 formats: tig: atl: Units-first or tens-first: Does language matter when processing visually presented two-digit numbers? aug: au: Poncin, Alexandre Van Rinsveld, Amandine Schiltz, Christine affil: Institute of Cognitive Science and Assessment (COSA), Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education, Université du Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences (CRCN), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium su: Older people Adults Mental arithmetic Cognitive processing of language Mathematics education sug: subj: Older people Adults Mental arithmetic Cognitive processing of language Mathematics education keyword: language number word Numerical cognition transcoding transparency language number word Numerical cognition transcoding transparency ab: The linguistic structure of number words can influence performance in basic numerical tasks such as mental calculation, magnitude comparison, and transcoding. Especially the presence of ten-unit inversion in number words seems to affect number processing. Thus, at the beginning of formal math education, young children speaking inverted languages tend to make relatively more errors in transcoding. However, it remains unknown whether and how inversion affects transcoding in older children and adults. Here we addressed this question by assessing two-digit number transcoding in adults and fourth graders speaking French and German, that is, using non-inverted and inverted number words, respectively. We developed a novel transcoding paradigm during which participants listened to two-digit numbers and identified the heard number among four Arabic numbers. Critically, the order of appearance of units and tens in Arabic numbers was manipulated mimicking the "units-first" and "tens-first" order of German and French. In a third "simultaneous" condition, tens and units appeared at the same time in an ecological manner. Although language did not affect overall transcoding speed in adults, we observed that German-speaking fourth graders were globally slower than their French-speaking peers, including in the "simultaneous" condition. Moreover, French-speaking children were faster in transcoding when the order of digit appearance was congruent with their number-word system (i.e., "tens-first" condition) while German-speaking children appeared to be similarly fast in the "units-first" and "tens-first" conditions. These findings indicate that inverted languages still impose a cognitive cost on number transcoding in fourth graders, which seems to disappear by adulthood. They underline the importance of language in numerical cognition and suggest that language should be taken into account during mathematics education. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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