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3-092 - The development of quantity representation for objects and substances

Sat, March 21, 9:55 to 11:25am, Marriott, Floor: Level 5, Grand Ballroom Salon K

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The ability to represent objects and substances is critical for interacting with the external world. Previous studies have examined the nature of this ability by investigating infants' ability to track and retain the properties of cohesive and non-cohesive entities. These findings suggest that there are differences in how objects and substances are represented (Chiang & Wynn, 2000; Feigenson, Carey, & Spelke, 2002; Feigenson, 2005; Hespos et al., 2012; Huntley-Fenner, Carey, & Solimando, 2002; Wynn, 1992). Specifically, while infants can encode both the number of objects and the continuous variables for objects, their ability seems to be limited to encoding only the continuous variables for substances. This symposium will present research about the underlying mechanisms for representing both objects and substances by investigating how infants and preschoolers quantify these distinct entities. In particular, the first presentation will focus on the relative salience of different perceptual cues in infants' quantity discrimination of substances (Chang, Hespos, & Rips). The second presentation will focus on the relative salience between the number of objects and the continuous variables in infants' ability to quantify objects (Brannon & Starr). The third presentation will focus on preschoolers' discrimination ability based on the number of objects and the continuous variables (vanMarle, Chu, Mou, & Geary). These papers move the field forward in a synergistic way because they address the nature of the representational ability for physical entities but draw from distinct perspectives, methodologies, and materials.

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