ArticleDevelopmental science2021
More than the sum of its parts: Exploring the development of ratio magnitude versus simple magnitude perception.
Article in Developmental science, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Nonsymbolic ratio and fraction magnitude processing predict fraction knowledge in early grades.Developmental psychology · 2026Article
- Systematic variation in proportion judgments: Spatial features impact adults' strategies and decisions.Journal of experimental psychology. General · 2026Article
- When more is not more: evidence for bounded perceptual-relational integration in non-symbolic proportion judgments.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Math language matters: math-specific verbal skills, not analog representation of non-symbolic magnitudes, predict symbolic fraction abilities in primary school children.Journal of experimental child psychology · 2025Article
- Neural Representation Precision of Distance Predicts Children's Arithmetic Performance.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Article
- The Effects of Visual Complexity and Task Difficulty on the Comprehensive Cognitive Efficiency of Cluster Separation Tasks.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Circling around number: People can accurately extract numeric values from circle area ratios.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2022Article
- Math anxiety differentially impairs symbolic, but not nonsymbolic, fraction skills across development.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2022Article
- Ratio-based perceptual foundations for rational numbers, and perhaps whole numbers, too?The Behavioral and brain sciences · 2021Article
- From Non-symbolic to Symbolic Proportions and Back: A Cuisenaire Rod Proportional Reasoning Intervention Enhances Continuous Proportional Reasoning Skills.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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Abstract
Humans perceptually extract quantity information from our environments, be it from simple stimuli in isolation, or from relational magnitudes formed by taking ratios of pairs of simple stimuli. Some have proposed that these two types of magnitude are processed by a common system, whereas others have proposed separate systems. To test these competing possibilities, the present study examined the developmental trajectories of simple and relational magnitude discrimination and relations among these abilities for preschoolers (n = 42), 2nd-graders (n = 31), 5th-graders (n = 29), and adults (n = 32). Participants completed simple magnitude and ratio discrimination tasks in four different nonsymbolic formats, using dots, lines, circles, and irregular blobs. All age cohorts accurately discriminated both simple and ratio magnitudes. Discriminability differed by format such that performance was highest with line and lowest with dot stimuli. Moreover, developmental trajectories calculated for each format were similar across simple and ratio discriminations. Although some characteristics were similar for both types of discrimination, ratio acuity in a given format was more closely related with ratio acuities in alternate formats than to within-format simple magnitude acuity. Results demonstrate that ratio magnitude processing shares several similarities to simple magnitude processing, but is also substantially different.
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