APHD Colloquium: How and what do children learn when they learn to count?
The talk presents research using brain imaging techniques (ERP, fNIRS) and behavioral studies across infants, children, and adults to uncover the cognitive and neural foundations of numerical development.
Children follow a systematic yet protracted developmental trajectory when learning the meanings of number words (e.g., Wynn, 1992). Early number word learning is difficult at first, proceeding in a slow, piecemeal, and sequential fashion for the first few number words (i.e., one, two, three). Then, children appear to have a sudden cognitive breakthrough to understand the meanings of larger number words and how to use this new symbolic system for counting. An open question is how children make this cognitive breakthrough to gain an initial understanding of the symbolic number system. Some accounts propose that children build on pre-existing non-verbal “core” numerical conceptual abilities (e.g., Feigenson, Dehaene, & Spelke, 2004; Piazza, 2010), while other accounts posit the development of new conceptual resources for symbolic numbers (e.g., Carey, 2004, 2009; Leslie, Gallistel, & Gelman, 2007).
In this talk, Dr. Dan Hyde will present an overview of some of his work using brain (i.e., ERP, fNIRS) and behavioral measures in infants, children, and adults in an attempt to gain novel insight into the foundations and nature of numerical development. Based on the evidence, Dr. Hyde will argue that children engage core, non-verbal numerical abilities to get number symbol learning off the ground, but a deeper understanding of symbolic numbers and counting requires the child to create new number concepts. In turn, this conceptual change appears to be associated with functional brain reorganization and forms the basis for further preschool and early elementary school numeracy. The session will discuss the potential implications of this work for both basic theory and translational education.
Event Agenda
- 1:00 - 2:00 PM: Presentation
- 2:00 - 2:30 PM: Audience Q&A
About the Speaker
Dr. Dan Hyde
Dr. Hyde is currently the Judy DeLoache Professional Scholar and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He obtained his BS in Psychology at Brigham Young University and then completed his master’s degree and PhD in Psychology under the direction of Elizabeth Spelke at Harvard University. His dissertation work documented commonalities in brain signatures and systems for processing numerical information in infants and adults using event-related potentials (ERP) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).
After completing his PhD, he continued on as a postdoctoral scholar at Harvard, using EEG and behavioral methods to study the effects of numeracy training on preschoolers. He has been a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois since 2012, where he applies developmental cognitive neuroscience approaches to study cognitive development.
