Brief practice on non-symbolic approximate numerical addition or comparison tasks speeds subsequent exact symbolic arithmetic in first graders compared with non-numerical magnitude tasks¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2014 · checked against its sources 2026-10-17 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Children who practiced non-symbolic numerical addition or comparison completed symbolic arithmetic problems faster than children who practiced line-length addition or brightness comparison. → Hyde 2014

Evidence¶

Hyde 2014¶

Hyde, D. C., Khanum, S., & Spelke, E. S. (2014). Brief non-symbolic, approximate number practice enhances subsequent exact symbolic arithmetic in children. Cognition, 131(1), 92-107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.12.007

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Experiment 1 assigned 96 first graders quasi-randomly to four training conditions (numerical addition, line addition, number comparison, brightness comparison) before a symbolic addition test. The results section reports that "children in the numerical addition and numerical comparison conditions completed symbolic arithmetic problems faster than children in the non-numerical conditions" (main effect F (3,92) = 3.366, p < .05).

"Pairwise post hoc analysis revealed that children in the numerical addition and numerical comparison conditions completed symbolic arithmetic problems faster than children in the non-numerical conditions"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Processing Speed — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Non-symbolic numerical addition practice improves accuracy on symbolic arithmetic but not sentence completion, showing the practice effect is specific to mathematics — related
• In Experiment 1, the numerical comparison group was more accurate on symbolic arithmetic than the line-length addition group, the only pairwise accuracy difference — related
• Engaging symbolic number representations does not by itself prime subsequent symbolic arithmetic: second test-set performance declined in both training groups — related
• The training-condition effect on symbolic arithmetic speed persists after controlling for training task reaction time and accuracy — related
• Children succeed at non-symbolic approximate addition above chance with a ratio effect, without relying on non-numerical strategies — related
• Both numerical training conditions improve magnitude processing more than a story-understanding control condition — related
• Symbolic number magnitude training, but not non-symbolic training, significantly improves preschoolers' exact arithmetic — related
• Greater mathematics content in a practice test improves subsequent mathematics performance by a small amount (~2% of a standard deviation per hour of practice) — related
• Non-symbolic training improves collection comparison at ratios 1:2, 2:3 and 3:4, while symbolic training improves only ratio 1:2 — related
• Children can learn the meanings of novel number symbols through an artificial symbol learning paradigm, performing above chance on a subsequent symbolic comparison task — related