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Number sense in infancy predicts mathematical abilities in childhood

  1. Elizabeth M. Brannona,b
  1. aCenter for Cognitive Neuroscience and
  2. bDepartment of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708;
  3. cDepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218; and
  4. dDepartment of Psychology and
  5. eLearning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

  1. Edited by Rochel Gelman, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, Piscataway, NJ, and approved September 23, 2013 (received for review February 14, 2013)

Significance

The uniquely human mathematical mind sets us apart from all other animals. How does this powerful capacity emerge over development? It is uncontroversial that education and environment shape mathematical ability, yet an untested assumption is that number sense in infants is a conceptual precursor that seeds human mathematical development. Our results provide the first support for this hypothesis. We found that preverbal number sense in 6-month-old infants predicted standardized math scores in the same children 3 years later. This discovery shows that number sense in infancy is a building block for later mathematical ability and invites educational interventions to improve number sense even before children learn to count.

Abstract

Human infants in the first year of life possess an intuitive sense of number. This preverbal number sense may serve as a developmental building block for the uniquely human capacity for mathematics. In support of this idea, several studies have demonstrated that nonverbal number sense is correlated with mathematical abilities in children and adults. However, there has been no direct evidence that infant numerical abilities are related to mathematical abilities later in childhood. Here, we provide evidence that preverbal number sense in infancy predicts mathematical abilities in preschool-aged children. Numerical preference scores at 6 months of age correlated with both standardized math test scores and nonsymbolic number comparison scores at 3.5 years of age, suggesting that preverbal number sense facilitates the acquisition of numerical symbols and mathematical abilities. This relationship held even after controlling for general intelligence, indicating that preverbal number sense imparts a unique contribution to mathematical ability. These results validate the many prior studies purporting to show number sense in infancy and support the hypothesis that mathematics is built upon an intuitive sense of number that predates language.

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ariel.starr{at}duke.edu.

  • Author contributions: A.S., M.E.L., and E.M.B. designed research; A.S. and M.E.L. performed research; A.S., M.E.L., and E.M.B. analyzed data; and A.S., M.E.L., and E.M.B. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1302751110/-/DCSupplemental.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

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