From early in life, humans have access to an approximate number system (ANS) that supports an intuitive sense of numerical quantity. Previous work in both children and adults suggests that individual differences in the precision of ANS representations correlate with symbolic math performance. However, this work has been almost entirely correlational in nature. Here we tested for a causal link between ANS precision and symbolic math performance by asking whether a temporary modulation of ANS precision changes symbolic math performance. First, we replicated a recent finding that 5-year-old children make more precise ANS discriminations when starting with easier trials and gradually progressing to harder ones, compared with the reverse. Next, we show that this brief modulation of ANS precision influenced children's performance on a subsequent symbolic math task but not a vocabulary task. In a supplemental experiment, we present evidence that children who performed ANS discriminations in a random trial order showed intermediate performance on both the ANS task and the symbolic math task, compared with children who made ordered discriminations. Thus, our results point to a specific causal link from the ANS to symbolic math performance.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 148. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 September 2016.
All research outputs
#333,204
of 31,987,399 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
#32
of 1,952 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#4,780
of 328,549 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
#3
of 33 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 31,987,399 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,952 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.6. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 328,549 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 33 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
