Interference between Enumeration of Small Numbers and Linguistic Processing by 5-Year-Olds and Adults

• Published in: The Japanese Journal of Developmental Psychology Vol. 22; no. 3; pp. 205 - 214
• Main Authors: Goshiki, Toru, Watanabe, Shizuyo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Japan Society of Developmental Psychology 20.09.2011
• Subjects: Enumeration; Five-year-old children; Irrelevant sound effect; Linguistic processing; Subitizing
• ISSN: 0915-9029; 2187-9346
• DOI: 10.11201/jjdp.22.205

Enumeration of small numbers of items can be performed by "subitizing," an instantaneous apprehension of the numerosity of a group, instead of one-by-one counting. Subitizing is thought to be an almost non-linguistic type of processing, although it has been shown that subitizing and linguistic processing interfere with each other. This paper examined relations between subitizing and linguistic processing. Irrelevant language streams, assumed to impede linguistic processing by subitizing, were supplied auditorily. Participants were 24 five-year-old children in Experiment 1 and 16 adults in Experiment 2. In addition, we used stimuli composed of meaningless and meaningful figures as objects for subitizing, and compared both to explore the process of subitizing and linguistic coding interference. The results showed that for children there was interference between subitizing and either (a) linguistic processing of irrelevant language streams or (b) meaningful stimuli. On the other hand, both of these were needed for interference to occur for adults. The findings suggest that (1) we concurrently handle subitizing, processing of irrelevant language streams, and coding, (2) there are limits in capacity for subitizing, and (3) adults have a larger capacity than 5-year-old children.