Language and math are important tools that allow humans to better understand the world around them, and communicate with one another. Some cognitive scientists are interested in learning more about how children develop language skills and conceptions about basic math principles, and how the development of math and language skills in early childhood might be interrelated.
This study explores children’s representation and reasoning about three-dimensional (3D) geometric features. We want to understand children’s capacity to identify 3D objects by using information such as angle, length and perspective.
In this study, children - ages 5 to 7- play a computer game with an experimenter. During the game, children are presented with an animal that hides in a specific ‘corner’. Then, children are shown pictures of four different corners. One of the pictures is of the original corner, but shown from a new perspective. The other three pictures show corners that are different from the original corner in angle or length. The children are then asked to find the hidden animal by identifying the original corner.
Previous studies have shown that both infants and children can distinguish between different angles in two-dimensional (2D) situations. This study explores why children have difficulty performing the same task when they are presented with three-dimensional (3D) shapes. We predict that this difficulty stems from the fact that 3D shapes may look different, when viewed from different perspectives.
Learn about other research related to Math and Language Cognition.
This research is conducted by the Laboratory for Developmental Studies at Harvard University