27.12.2013 Views

The influence of the place-value structure of the Arabic number ...

The influence of the place-value structure of the Arabic number ...

The influence of the place-value structure of the Arabic number ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

explanation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> decade consistency effect in multiplication). Considering this recent<br />

evidence on <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> <strong>influence</strong>s in mental arithmetic, closer investigation differentiating<br />

effects <strong>of</strong> decade and unit distance seems a promising approach to get fur<strong>the</strong>r insights into <strong>the</strong><br />

generalizability <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>influence</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> <strong>structure</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Arabic</strong> <strong>number</strong> system on<br />

numerical cognition.<br />

Anyway, apart from <strong>the</strong> results suggesting <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> related <strong>influence</strong>s to reflect a<br />

comprehensive processing principle ra<strong>the</strong>r than specific effects associated with a particular<br />

task, <strong>the</strong> current <strong>the</strong>sis also provided evidence suggesting that <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> understanding is<br />

never<strong>the</strong>less subject to individual and cultural differences. Aspects concerning interindividual<br />

as well as inter-cultural variation in processing <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> information will be<br />

addressed in <strong>the</strong> following paragraph.<br />

Individual and cultural differences in processing <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> information<br />

Even when accepting <strong>the</strong> assumption that representations <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Arabic</strong> <strong>number</strong><br />

system’s <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> <strong>structure</strong> are vitally involved in numerical cognition, <strong>the</strong> question <strong>of</strong><br />

possible inter-individual and inter-cultural differences remains.<br />

As regards <strong>the</strong> latter, Miura and colleagues (Miura & Okamoto, 1989; Miura et al.,<br />

1994) showed that <strong>the</strong> transparency <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>number</strong> word system <strong>of</strong> a given language<br />

concerning <strong>the</strong> way in which units, tens, etc. are verbally recoded is an important determinant<br />

<strong>of</strong> children’s mastery <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> <strong>structure</strong>. Against this background Study 3 <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />

current <strong>the</strong>sis was conducted to evaluate <strong>the</strong> <strong>influence</strong> <strong>of</strong> such language differences <strong>of</strong> <strong>number</strong><br />

word systems in a totally non-verbal task, <strong>the</strong> <strong>number</strong> line estimation task. Despite <strong>the</strong> fact<br />

that performance <strong>of</strong> both German- and Italian speaking children was accounted for best by a<br />

two-linear model with a fixed breakpoint at 10 (see above for a discussion), German- and<br />

Italian-speaking children differed reliably in <strong>the</strong> accuracy <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir estimates upon <strong>the</strong><br />

303

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!