Concurrent validity of approximate number sense tasks in adults and children

Reasoning with non-symbolic numerosities is suggested to be rooted in the Approximate Number System (ANS) and evidence pointing to a relationship between the acuity of this system and mathematics is available. In order to use the acuity of this ANS as a screening instrument to detect future math problems, it is important to model ANS acuity over development. However, whether ANS acuity and its development have been described accurately can be questioned. Namely, different tasks were used to examine the developmental trajectory of ANS acuity and studies comparing performances on these different tasks are scarce. In the present study, we examined whether different tasks designed to measure the acuity of the ANS are comparable and lead to related ANS acuity measures (i.e., the concurrent validity of these tasks). We contrasted the change detection task, which is used in infants, with tasks that are more commonly used in older children and adults (i.e., comparison and same-different tasks). Together, our results suggest that ANS acuity measures obtained with different tasks are not related. This poses serious problems for the comparison of ANS acuity measures derived from different tasks and thus for the establishment of the developmental trajectory of ANS acuity.