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Can young infants add and subtract?

A Wakeley1, S Rivera, J Langer

  • 1School of Education, University of California, Berkeley 94720-1690, USA. awakeley@socrates.berkeley.edu

Child Development
|February 24, 2001
PubMed
Summary

Five-month-old infants did not show reliable arithmetic skills in looking time tests. These findings suggest infant numerical competence is not robust and develops gradually.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Infant Cognition

Background:

  • Early research suggested infants possess arithmetic abilities.
  • Wynn's procedure is a common method for testing infant numerical competence.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the robustness of arithmetic competence in 5-month-old infants.
  • To examine infants' reactions to simple addition and subtraction transformations.

Main Methods:

  • Replication of Wynn's procedure with 68 infants aged 5 months.
  • Testing looking time responses to correct and incorrect arithmetic outcomes (1+1, 2-1, 3-1).
  • Inclusion of both imprecise and precise calculation tasks.

Main Results:

  • No systematic evidence of adding or subtracting abilities was found in the infants tested.
  • Results contrasted with previous findings by Wynn.
  • Observed variability in infant reactions to arithmetic displays.

Conclusions:

  • Infants' numerical competence is not robust at 5 months.
  • Arithmetic skills develop gradually throughout infancy and early childhood.
  • Variability in findings suggests a need for further research into infant numerical cognition.

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