Poster #36 - Specific Linguistic Cues Eliminate Perceptual Interference During a Number Estimation Task

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Communicating is inherently difficult because the perceptual world is incredibly rich: if I point towards a coffee cup, I could be asking you to pass it to me, or I might be pointing out a particular color, or shape, or size, or purpose, etc. Here, we propose that one key role of language is to narrow attention towards only a specific subset of possible perceptual representations. We test this hypothesis within the case-study of our intuitive number sense (e.g., judging whether there are more blue or yellow dots on a screen), which is well-known to be susceptible to perceptual interference from non-numeric dimensions, such as the size or contour length of the dots. We propose that specific quantifiers (i.e., “many”) can nevertheless narrow children’s attention to only number and eliminate interference from competing perceptual dimensions.

Five- to eight-year old children saw displays of blue and yellow dots that were embedded within a visual illusion that created a strong conflict between number and contour length (Figure 1); on half the trials, the side with more dots also had the illusion of a longer contour length (Congruent trials), while on the other half the trials the side with fewer dots had the illusion of a longer contour length (Incongruent trials). In Experiment 1 (N = 30), we demonstrate that simply asking children to discriminate which side has “more” dots produces strong perceptual interference: children performed significantly better on the Congruent than Incongruent trials (F(3,75) = 22.27; p < .001; ηp2 = .43).

However, when we introduce a count-noun specific quantifier in Experiment 2 (N = 33) and ask children “how many” blue/yellow dots there are, we find that the effect of perceptual interference from contour length is entirely eliminated (F(2, 56) = 1.99; p = .152; ηp2 = .06), suggesting that children’s attention was drawn towards number and away from the competing interference of other visual percepts (i.e., contour length). These findings contribute to our understanding of the interaction between language and perception, and importantly suggest that certain linguistic cues (i.e., the quantifier “many”) may have a privileged status within particular perceptual domains (i.e., number). We discuss these results within a broader context of children’s acquisition of quantifiers and their intuitive number sense.

Authors

• Deena Hymowitz, University of British Columbia
  Presenting Author

• Denitza P. Dramkin, University of British Columbia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Darko Odic, University of British Columbia
  Non-Presenting Author