Date: Sept. 19, 2018 3:00pm-4:30pm

Location: Dunton Tower: Room 2203

Speaker: Rebecca Merkley

Title: Attention counts for learning about numbers

Abstract:

Learning the meaning of number words is a major milestone for young children’s numerical thinking. In this talk, I will explore the potential role of attentional control skills in this learning with a particular focus on: 1) selecting number as the relevant dimension in face of conflicting cues; 2) directing attention to the ordinal relationships between symbols. Through a series of studies, I will show that the control of attention is important for directing attention to information relevant to learning about numbers, and in turn that experience with number words guides the deployment of attention in numerical tasks. Therefore, I argue that selective attention and number word knowledge influence each other reciprocally over development and contribute to the development of symbolic number representations.