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{
    "pk": 50177,
    "title": "Units of representation: Children's perception of number in the \"connectedness illusion\"",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "The developmental and evolutionary origins of abstract number reasoning have long been debated. Central to this debate is the underlying unit: whether the quantitative reasoning observed in infants and animals necessitates truly numeric object-level representation or can instead be inferred from covarying low-level spatial frequency. Recent studies with adults rely on the \"connectedness illusion\" to dissociate cardinality from spatial frequency, suggesting object-level representation is fundamental. However, whether these representations exist early in development remains underexplored.\nWe use the connectedness illusion to test whether 3–6-year-old children enumerate objects or spatial frequency. Children complete a non-symbolic comparison task modeled after He et al. (2009). On 50% of trials, two dots are connected by a line, forming a \"barbell.\" Results show that, like adults, children underestimate connected displays despite instructions to ignore the connections. These findings suggest that object-level representations, rather than low-level spatial frequency, underlie children's quantitative reasoning.",
    "language": "eng",
    "license": {
        "name": "",
        "short_name": "",
        "text": null,
        "url": ""
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "Psychology; Cognitive development; Perception; Representation; Psychophysics"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Member Abstracts with Poster Presentation",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4fb0x764",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Eloise",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "West",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of British Columbia",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Darko",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Odic",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of British Columbia",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": null,
    "date_accepted": null,
    "date_published": "2025-01-01T18:00:00Z",
    "render_galley": null,
    "galleys": [
        {
            "label": "PDF",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/50177/galley/38139/download/"
        }
    ]
}