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Children's Proportional Judgments: The Importance of “Half”
Author(s) -
Spinillo Alina G.,
Bryant Peter
Publication year - 1991
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/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01542.x
Subject(s) - boundary (topology) , psychology , perception , proportional reasoning , developmental psychology , white (mutation) , audiology , statistics , mathematics , mathematical analysis , chemistry , medicine , biochemistry , neuroscience , gene
3 experiments are reported, all of which show the crucial importance of the “half” boundary in children's proportional judgments. In the first experiment 4‐, 5‐, 6‐, and 7‐year‐old children had to judge which of 2 boxes of blue and white bricks was represented in a small picture. The proportion of blue to white bricks was different in the 2 boxes, and the question was whether the children could use these proportions to make their choices. The 6‐ and 7‐year‐old children solved the problem much more successfully when the proportions crossed the “half” boundary (e.g., 3/8 blue vs. 5/8 blue). The second experiment showed that discriminations involving half (e.g., 1/2 blue vs. 1/4 blue) are also easier than those that do not cross the “half” boundary for the 6‐ and 7‐year‐olds. The third experiment confirmed the results of the first 2 with pictures of different absolute sizes from each other. We conclude that “half” plays a crucial role in children's early proportional reasoning, and that the “half” boundary is to some extent similar to, though not as powerful as, the category boundaries discovered in speech perception.