Doctoral Dissertation Research: Integrating Numerical and Linguistic Knowledge in the Exact Interpretation of Numerals

博士论文研究：将数字和语言知识整合到数字的精确解释中

• 批准号: 2017816
• 负责人: John Grinstead
• 金额: $ 1.87万
• 依托单位: Ohio State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2017816&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Integrating; Numerical

Words that convey quantity information are everywhere in natural language. Consequently, there must be a way for the part of our mind dedicated to number and the part of our mind dedicated to language to communicate with each other. It has been argued that language and the part of our mind that manages spatial information must also communicate in this way. However, no research has taken tests of children’s number knowledge to see if they are predictive of the quantity-sensitive parts of the language knowledge. The goal of this project is to investigate the number-language connection in children’s exact interpretations of numbers. Though numbers are usually thought of as exact, they can also have, for example, “at least” interpretations (e.g. to eat 6 donuts is to also have eaten 5 donuts). What else matters for children’s abilities to know when a number is exact and when it isn’t? The investigators will test children’s vocabularies to see if they predict exact interpretations. The researchers will also test a part of children’s cognition called executive function, namely, the parts of our minds dedicated to working memory, attention and inhibition, to see whether they are predictive. In this way, the research project will lead to a better understanding of how the different components of our mind work together to allow us to draw a very important type of interpretation of numbers, which are valuable for later quantitative and mathematical thinking in children. This project will study this development in monolingual Spanish-speakers because there is some evidence that numerical thinking can vary across languages. The study includes a video-recorded Truth-Value Judgment Task (TVJT) to measure children’s exactness interpretations as the dependent variable. This procedure will improve the researchers' ability to measure discriminability by using numbers higher than those used in previous research. Children’s numerical knowledge will be measured using conventional tasks from cognitive development to measure numerical estimation: the approximate number system (ANS), using Panamath; counting, using Give-A-Number; number sense and partitioning using Number Sets; and the Number-Line Tasks. These measures should provide evidence of properties of numerical cognition in the exact interpretation of natural language quantifiers and enable the investigators to model how language and number interact, mediated by executive function.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在自然语言中，传达数量信息的词语随处可见，我们的大脑中负责数字的部分和我们负责语言的部分必须有一种方式可以相互交流。我们大脑中管理空间信息的部分也必须以这种方式进行交流。但是，还没有研究对儿童的数字知识进行测试，以了解它们是否可以预测语言知识中对数量敏感的部分。研究儿童对数字的准确解释中的数字与语言之间的联系尽管数字通常被认为是准确的，但它们也可以有“至少”的解释（例如，吃 6 个甜甜圈意味着也吃过 5 个甜甜圈）。研究人员将测试儿童的词汇量，看看他们是否能预测准确的解释。研究人员还将测试儿童认知的一部分，即执行功能，即我们大脑中专门用于执行功能的部分。工作记忆、注意力和抑制力，看看它们是否具有预测性，通过这种方式，该研究项目将有助于更好地理解我们大脑的不同组成部分如何协同工作，从而使我们能够对数字做出非常重要的解释。 ，这对于儿童以后的定量和数学思维很有价值，该项目将研究单语西班牙语人士的这种发展，因为有证据表明数字思维可能因语言而异。该研究包括视频记录的真值判断任务（ TVJT）测量儿童该程序将通过使用比先前研究中使用的数字更高的数字来提高研究人员测量可辨别性的能力，而儿童的数字知识将使用认知发展中的传统任务来测量数字估计：近似数字系统。 （ANS），使用Panamath；计数，使用数字集；以及数轴任务这些措施应提供自然语言量词的精确解释中的数字认知属性的证据。使研究人员能够模拟语言和数字如何在执行功能的调节下相互作用。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。