The Role of Number and Length Cues in Children's Quantitative Judgments

LAWSON, GLEN; BARON, JONATHAN; and SIEGEL, LINDA. The Role of Number and Length Cues in Children's Quantitative Judgments. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1974, 45, 731-736. 27 children aged 2-10 to 5 were asked which of 2 rows had more dots and which was longer. The pairs of 3or 4-dot rows were varied in congruence and conflict of length, number, and density cues. Some Ss answered consistently in terms of length regardless of the question, but the majority of Ss tended to answer both questions as if they had been asked about number. This suggests that length is not necessarily a prepotent cue in judging number, especially if the arrays are small. A conservation task was included to allow for a comparison of performance on static and transformed arrays. Children who used number cues on the static arrays did not necessarily use the number cue correctly on the transformed arrays. However, children who used number on the transformed arrays were very likely to use the number cue on the static arrays and to use the number cue to judge length, even when inappropriate.