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Can Infants Really Add and Subtract?


Leslie B. Cohen
University of Texas at Austin
Invited debate in session, "Can Babies Do Math?" Presented at 2002 Meeting of
the International Conference on Infant Studies.
Preparation of this paper and some of the research presented in it was
supported by NIH grant HD-23397 to the author from the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development.
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Can Infants Really Add and Subtract?
Can infants really add and subtract? No. I don't think so. At least I haven't
seen any convincing evidence of it. However, it can be instructive to examine this
claim in some detail. We can do so at three different levels of magnification. To
use a camera analogy, we can attach a wide-angle lens and try to see how the claim
fits into the panorama of views of infant cognition presented over the last several
decades. When I consider these views and how they have changed over the years,
it reminds me of a series of mini Kuhnian revolutions or paradigm shifts (Kuhn,
1962). In the late 1960's and early 1970's we had the Chomskian revolution, of
course, with its emphasis on both the innateness and modularity of language. The
task was to derive a complete description of language based upon a set of
predetermined universal rules or principles. About a decade later in the late 1970's
and early 1980's we find this same approach extrapolated to explanations of infant
cognition. Creative investigators such as Liz Spelke, Alan Leslie, etc. emphasized
the early competence of infants, and both the innateness and modularity of infant
knowledge. Once again processes regarding development change were de-
emphasized. The task was, and still is, for some investigators, to discover the set
of innate, predetermined rules infants use to understand the world around them.
Karen Wynn's claim that 5-month-old infants have the native ability to add and
subtract certainly fits within this theoretical perspective (Wynn, 1995).
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But about 10 years later, in the mid to late 1980's and early 1990's, another
mini theoretical revolution began to appear. From a developmental point of view,
these changes could first be seen most clearly with respect to infant language
acquisition. In the 1990's and even up to the present time this view has gradually
expanded to include infant cognition as well. Kuhn argued that theoretical
revolutions often originate from outside the field. That certainly seems to be the
case here. This new approach is based upon an amalgamation of cognitive
neuroscience, dynamical systems, and computational modeling. The PDP books in
1986, (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1986; Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986), the
"Rethinking Innateness" books by Elman et al. in 1996, the new book by Tom
Shultz (in press) entitled "Computational Developmental Psychology" are all
examples of this exciting new trend. So are the many recent connectionist models
on a variety of topics in infant cognition. These models, which range from infant
categorization, to object permanence, to word learning, to causal perception, all
provide evidence of the viability of this new approach. And one of the most
appealing aspects of the approach to me is that it provides a renewed emphasis on
mechanisms of change, learning, adaptation, and development.
So we could debate whether infants can add and subtract at this global
theoretical level. If we did, I would ask proponents of the innate math module,
where the module comes from and how it develops? I would ask whether there is
one module for mathematical ability or separate modules for addition and
subtraction. What about multiplication and division or solving differential
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equations? And what about domain general mechanisms that seem to apply to this
ability but don't fit into a modular framework? But a debate at this level would
probably degenerate into an argument over nature versus nurture. We've had these
debates before, and there may not be much point in repeating them here.
Instead, we could switch to a normal, 50 mm lens and focus our debate on
specific groups of studies that one way or another relate to infant addition and
subtraction. Karen's talk today was at this level. If we did, I would be the first to
admit that several other examples in the literature, like Karen's, purport to
demonstrate that infants can add and subtract. The authors' explanations of the
underlying mechanisms vary somewhat, but most of these studies do tend to
replicate, at least partially, Karen's original results. (But see Wakeley, A., Rivera,
S. and Langer, J. (2000) for a failure to replicate). I find it interesting that the
studies most closely related tend to have tested older infants, usually 8 or 9 months
of age rather than the 5-month-olds Karen tested. I personally believe there is a big
difference in how a 5-month-old and a 9- or 10-month-old will perform on these
tasks. And I would ask the authors of these other studies why they decided to test
older infants, and whether they first tested 5-month-old infants, but failed.
But continuing at this 50 mm lens level, there are other relevant studies
beyond those specifically dealing with infant addition and subtraction. For
example, evidence is mounting that infants may not actually be enumerating
objects. Instead they may be responding just to the overall quantity or amount, or
in the case of temporally sequential events, to rhythm. A recent Psychological
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Bulletin article by Mix, Huttenlocher, and Levine (in press) reaches this conclusion
after reviewing much of the literature on infant cross-modal matching, subitizing,
and addition and subtraction. But if infants are just responding to overall amount,
they can't actually be counting items, a prerequisite for adding and subtracting.
This overall quantity view suggests, although it doesn't necessarily imply, that
infants in the addition-subtraction task may be responding at an ordinal level, to
differences such as greater than or less than, rather than to a specific number of
items.
While we remain at the 50 mm lens level, another relevant body of evidence
seems to have been ignored by those investigating infant arithmetic. Since the
1970s infant researchers have found that under certain conditions infants will
respond more to a familiar display than to a novel display. We know for example
that younger infants are more prone to show a familiarity preference than older
infants, and that complex events, or ones that are difficult to process, are more
likely to lead to a familiarity preference than simple events. Hunter and Ames
(1988) summarized these relationships in the following figures:
Insert Figures 1 and 2 Here
The dip in their 3-dimensional model represents a familiarity preference. As one
can see from the model, the dip is more pronounced the younger the infant and the
more difficult (or complex) the task.
Let us analyze Wynn's addition and subtraction task from this point of view.
Karen's addition and subtraction study tested relatively young infants in a
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procedure that certainly was complex, with a Venetian blind going up and down,
objects moving in and out, a screen raising and lowering, a variety of noises, a
hand appearing and disappearing, etc. If one considers Wynns study from this
perspective it is at least possible that her infants were showing a familiarity
preference rather than surprise to the incorrect number of items in her addition or
subtraction task.
In order to examine the plausibility of this familiarity preference option we
have to switch to a higher level of resolution, or to continue our analogy, to a what
would be a telephoto lens. Wynn (1992) did not use habituation, but she did use a
violation of expectation task. One can summarize her procedure in a couple of
different ways.
In her addition task infants first see one object placed on a stage, then a hand
goes behind a screen to add a second object, then the screen comes down to reveal
either one or two objects. Infants look longer at one than at two presumably
because it is the wrong number. But at our current level of resolution, one also can
describe the procedure slightly differently. Infants first see one object, the hand
does something; then in the test the infant sees one object. But there are six test
trials. So on trial two, the infant sees one object, then in the test, 2 objects; on trial
3, one object, then one object; on trial 4, one object, then 2 objects; on Trial 5, one
object, then one object; and on trial 6, one object then two objects. Over the course
of the experiment infants see one object 9 times and two objects 3 times. If infants
have a familiarity bias, they should look longer at one object than two objects, not
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because one object is incorrect, but because it is more familiar. A similar argument
can be made about infants looking longer at two objects than one object on a
subtraction problem. They see 2 objects (the incorrect number) 9 times and 1
object (the correct number) 3 times.
Katherine Marks and I (Cohen & Marks, 2002) attempted to disentangle
these various explanations. We replicated the procedure used by Wynn (1992)
with one major exception. Instead of repeatedly testing the infants with one and
two items, we tested them with zero, one, two, and three items. We felt that
change was necessary in order to differentiate an addition-subtraction explanation,
from an overall quantity explanation, from a familiarity preference explanation.
The logic behind this manipulation is shown in Figure 3.
Insert Figure 3 about here
As you can see from this figure, each explanation leads to a different set of
predictions. All three explanations lead to the same predictions regarding outcomes
1 and 2, but they lead to different predictions regarding outcomes 0 and 3. We ran
three different experiments. Each experiment had two blocks of trials and each
block had 0, 1, 2, and 3 as outcomes presented in a random order. Our first
experiment was an attempt to replicate Wynn, (1992). The results are shown in the
top portion of Figure 4.
Insert Figure 4 about here
If you look at just the gray bars, which are the 1 and 2 outcomes, our results do
replicate hers. In the addition condition infants look longer at 1 item than at 2
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items, and in the subtraction condition they look longer at 2 items than at 1 item.
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These results fit any of the three explanations.
If you look at the overall pattern of results including outcomes 0 and 3, it
looks as though there also is a general tendency to look longer the more items are
on the stage. That tendency was not predicted by any of the explanations. The
tendency to look longer when there are more items was confirmed by our second
study, a control experiment in which the infants just got the test trials. They also
looked longer when more items were on the stage, but that result occurred more in
the second than the first block of trials.
Our third experiment was the most informative. In that experiment we
wanted to simulate the infants' exposure to the objects but not have any addition or
subtraction manipulation. So we familiarized infants to either one or two items for
approximately 2 s before each test. In the simulated addition condition on each trial
infants would see one item for 2 s before the screen would come up and then go
down to reveal 0, 1, 2, or 3 items. In our simulated subtraction condition infants
would see two items for 2 s before being tested with 0, 1, 2, or 3 items. The results
are presented in the bottom portion of Figure 4. As you can see, these results look
remarkably like those from our first experiment. But remember there was no
addition and subtraction manipulation, only familiarization. Neither the
directional, nor the addition-subtraction explanation would predict these results.
They are only consistent with the familiarity preference explanation.
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Although our findings don't prove that Wynn's babies weren't adding and
subtracting, they indicate to me that her infants could have been just showing a
familiarity preference. At the very least they indicate that familiarity preferences
must be taken seriously and controlled for in these types of experiments.
In the event you want to examine these experiments in more detail, you
should know that they will soon appear (or have just appeared) in Developmental
Science followed by a set of commentaries, including one by Karen (Wynn, 2002)
and a response by myself (Cohen, 2002). In those commentaries the most
potentially telling argument against generalizing from our experiments to Wynns
is that we used four different types of test trials and she only used two types. Wynn
(2002) argued that four outcomes may increase infants attention to perceptual
features or teach the infants to expect the unexpected. Another commenter,
Carey (2002), also doubted that we would have obtained the same results if we had
used two rather than four outcomes. She suggested that perhaps the infants were
becoming overloaded by the complexity of the four-choice outcome. Neither
commenter explains though, why that overload would lead us to obtain the same
results as Wynn in our first experiment.
Nevertheless, we found a way to test these counter arguments (Cohen,
2002). We went back to our first experiment and looked just at the first two trials.
Having been given only two trials the infants had no opportunity to learn to expect
the unexpected, or to have become overloaded. Fortunately we had tested 80
infants in this original experiment, so we had a sufficient amount of data to work
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with. We now ran two different types of analyses. (Please bear with me; this may
get a bit complicated.) In one analysis we tested the notion that infants were
looking longer at impossible than possible outcomes. Forty of the infants in their
first two trials had received one possible and one impossible outcome. That is, in
the addition condition they saw two items (possible) and either 0, 1, or 3 items
(impossible). The other 40 infants saw two impossible outcomes in these first two
trials. Our analysis examined whether there would be a significant interaction
between those infants who saw possible-impossible outcomes and those who saw
two impossible outcomes. Would infants look longer at the impossible than the
possible outcome, but look equally at the two impossible outcomes? The answer
was no! The F value was less than 1, F (1,78) = .077; p >.75.
We then went back and did the same analysis a different way. In this
analysis we tested whether infants looked longer at familiar than at unfamiliar
outcomes. Forty of the infants had received one familiar and one unfamiliar
outcome on their first two trials. (One item would be familiar in the addition
condition and two items would be familiar in the subtraction condition.) The other
40 infants had received two unfamiliar outcomes. This time the interaction was
significant, F (1, 78) = 3.97; p < .05. Infants looked longer at the familiar than
unfamiliar outcome, but equally at the two unfamiliar outcomes.

Thus, even when
we examined just the first two trials, we found evidence that the infants would look
longer at familiar than unfamiliar outcomes, but not that they would look longer at
impossible than possible outcomes.
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So what does this all mean? In order to answer this question we need to
switch lenses once again and go back either to our 50 mm lens or our wide-angle
lens. If it just means that the original Wynn study had a possible confound and
should have been better controlled, there would be little reason to debate. On the
other hand if we see the Wynn study as an example from a larger set, a set that
includes numerous studies presumably demonstrating the precocity of young
infants, then we may have something very significant to debate. I believe our
experiments on addition and subtraction, the third experiment in particular, may be
telling us something important about these other studies as well.
Many of these studies are like Karen's. They use a "violation of
expectation" paradigm. They present complicated events with moving, interacting
objects to young infants. And more and more they are failing to habituate infants
thoroughly prior to testing the infants' violation of expectations. In other words
they are setting up situations optimal for producing a familiarity preference. These
studies need to be examined (or re-examined) carefully to determine which, if any,
may be confounded by this familiarity preference, and future studies of this type
need to include controls to rule out such a preference.
What else might our third experiment be telling us? Most people who
believe in the precocity of young infants also believe that infants have the
equivalent of Stage 4 object permanence by 3 or 4 months of age. That is, at a
minimum they assume that young infants "know" that when an object is totally
occluded it continues to exist. In fact that assumption is often the starting point in
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the design of studies that involve one object going behind another or being hidden
by a screen, as in Karen's studies. Well if these people don't "buy in" to the
possibility of a familiarity preference, then Experiment 3 should present a real
problem to them. Experiment 3 can be thought of as the simplest possible test of
object permanence using the violation of expectation paradigm. Infants just see
one or two objects on a stage; a screen is raised to occlude these objects, and then
the screen is lowered to reveal either the same number or a different number of
objects. From an object permanence point of view, when the number changes,
either one or more objects has magically appeared or disappeared. The infants'
expectation of object permanence certainly should be violated. As a consequence
the infants should look longer at the changed number of objects. But they don't.
They look longer at the same number of objects. Either these infants don't really
have object permanence, or there is something wrong with the "violation of
expectation" paradigm.
Finally at the most general level one conclusion upon which we should all be
able to agree (Cohen, 2001; 2002) is that we should not ignore earlier theory and
research, even studies reported as long as 20 or 30 years ago. What we learned
back then can provide valuable insights into topics being investigated today. And it
can prevent unnecessary errors. One of the most valuable lessons to be learned is
that we should be cautious about attributing sophisticated cognitive processes to
young infants when simpler processes will suffice. One such simple process, that
really should be considered more seriously, in a wide variety of studies on infant
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cognition, is a preference for familiarity, particularly when complex events are
presented to young infants.
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References
Carey, S. (2002). Evidence for numerical abilities in young infants: A fatal
flaw? Developmental Science.
Cohen, L.B. (2001, April). Uses and Misuses of Habituation: A Theoretical
and Methodological Analysis. Symposium paper presented at the Society for
Research in Child Development Meeting, Minneapolis.
Cohen, L. B. (2002). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary controls.
Developmental Science, 5, 211-212.
Cohen, L. B. & Marks, K. S. (2002). How infants process addition and
subtraction events. Developmental Science. 5, 186-201.
Elman, J. L., Bates, E. A., Johnson, M. H., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D.,
& Plunkett, K. (1996). Rethinking innateness: A connectionist perspective on
development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hunter, M. A. & Ames, E. W. (1988). A multifactor model of infant
preferences for novel and familiar stimuli. In C. Rovee-Collier & L. P. Lipsitt
(Eds.), Advances in infancy research (Vol 5, pp 69-95). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of
Chicago Press.
McClelland, J. L., & Rumelhart, D. E. (Eds.). (1986). Explorations in
parallel distributed processing. Vol. 2, Psychological and biological models.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Mix, K. S., Huttenlocher, J., & Levine, S. C. (2002). Multiple cues for
quantification in infancy: Is number one of them? Psychological Bulletin, 128.
Rumelhart, D. E. & McClelland J. L. (Eds.) (1986). Parallel distributed
processing: Explorations in the microstructure of cognition. Vol. 1, Foundations.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shultz, T. R. (In Press). Computational Developmental Psychology.
Wakeley, A., Rivera, S. & Langer, J. (2000). Can young infants add and
subtract? Child Development, 71, 1525-1534.
Wynn, K. (1992). Addition and subtraction by human infants. Nature, 358,
749-750.
Wynn, K. (2002). Do infants have numerical expectations or just perceptual
preferences? Developmental Science.
Wynn, K. (1995). Origins of numerical knowledge. Mathematical Cognition,
1, 35-60.
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Footnote
1
. The data in Figure 3 for both Experiments 1 and 3 come from the first
block of test trials. Infants received two blocks of trials, but the second block
produced no differences.
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Figure 1:
Hunter and Ames (1988)
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Figure 2:
Predicted Looking Times Based upon Three Different, but Possible Explanations
Addition Task
Familiarity Directional Computational
1 + 1 = 0 Short Long Long
1 + 1 = 1 Long Long Long
1 + 1 = 2 Short Short Short
1 + 1 = 3 Short Short Long
Subtraction Task
Familiarity Directional Computational
2 - 1 = 0 Short Short Long
2 - 1 = 1 Short Short Short
2 - 1 = 2 Long Long Long
2 - 1 = 3 Short Long Long

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Figure 3:
Addition
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
3 2 1 0
Subtraction
3 2 1 0
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Condition
Experiment 1
(Replication)
One Two
No. of Familiarization Items
0
5
10
15
20
25
3 2 1 0
3 2 1 0
Experiment 3
( Familiarization)
Cohen & Marks (2002)

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