Relational and Representational Aspects of Early Number Development

Abstract

Two experiments examined the role of representations of numerosity in children's reasoning about relations between two quantities. In the first experiment, 3- and 4-year-old children were able to solve matching-to-sample problems on the basis of both the numerosity of a focal set (number matches) and the correspondence relation between two sets (relational matches); but in a conflict condition, the younger children used only the relational information. In the second experiment, both the 3- and the 4-year-olds showed very high levels of success in inferring numerical equivalence from commutativity relations between two pairs of sets. Children were successful even when one of the sets in each pair was covered, so that children could not directly enumerate the quantities to be compared. Both findings support the notion that relational reasoning originates independently of processes for representing numerosity.