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Young Children's Reasoning about Many‐to‐One Correspondences
Author(s) -
Sophian Catherine,
Madrid Samara
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8624.00615
Subject(s) - generalization , psychology , set (abstract data type) , multiplicative function , developmental psychology , child development , cognitive psychology , cognitive development , cognition , mathematics , computer science , mathematical analysis , neuroscience , programming language
Young children's understanding of many‐to‐one correspondence problems was studied to illuminate the developmental transition from additive to multiplicative numerical knowledge. A many‐to‐one correspondence exists when a fixed number of target objects (greater than 1) is associated with each of a set of referents, as in putting 3 flowers in each of several vases. Two experiments examined effects of a brief training procedure that highlighted the iterative nature of many‐to‐one mappings. In Experiment 1, 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children did not benefit from the training, but a subset of 7‐year‐olds did. In Experiment 2, 7‐year‐olds showed training effects that extended to generalization problems. Patterns of performance across experimental and generalization problems suggested that some children had difficulty applying what they learned from training to the experimental problems.