Premium
A MODEL OF THE COGNITIVE MEANING OF MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSIONS
Author(s) -
ERNEST PAUL
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
british journal of educational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.557
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 2044-8279
pISSN - 0007-0998
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1987.tb00862.x
Subject(s) - meaning (existential) , psychology , cognition , focus (optics) , function (biology) , language of mathematics , feature (linguistics) , mental representation , linguistics , cognitive psychology , cognitive science , mathematics education , philosophy , physics , neuroscience , evolutionary biology , optics , psychotherapist , biology
S ummary . The central focus of the paper is the nature of the mental representations of the meaning of the linguistic expressions of mathematics. An information‐processing model for the construction of mental representations is presented. The model provides syntactical tree structures as meaning representations. It is argued that the major function of written mathematical language in school mathematics is in the initial presentations of pupil tasks. An information‐processing model for the performance of routine mathematical tasks is proposed. The central feature of the model is the major role that transformations of mental representations play. The overall model is related to children's conceptual development, and a series of stages in the acquisition of mathematical language is proposed. Finally, the model is shown to be consistent with a range of current concepts, theories and observational data.