The Young Numerical Mind

Sara Cordes
Department of Psychology
Boston College

Research reveals that infants are tuned to quantitative information in 
the world around them, however there is debate as to exactly what type 
of information they find relevant. In this talk, I will discuss studies 
investigating infant abilities to track abstract quantities, both 
discrete (number), and continuous (extent), specifically comparing the 
relative salience and discriminability of these quantities. Results 
reveal that contrary to traditional theories of development, infants 
do not represent continuous extent with ease. Instead, I will argue 
that number is in fact much more important to the infant than 
previously thought.