Number Systems in Babies and Adults

Today turned out to be full of talks about development in children and adults. In the morning, Dr. Brenda Armstrong (who, funny enough, taught my mom in medical school) gave us a talk about how the in-utero heart changes after the baby is born. I was fascinated, and although I don't think I will ever go into pediatric cardiology, Dr. Armstrong's talk reminded me of how incredible our bodies are. Our bodies go through incredible changes in a span of seventy or so years. Not only physically, but developmentally.

The thing that I am most interested in scentifically right now is early childhood development. Anyone who knows me is aware that I love kids. I babysit regularly; it is not just a job but an important part of my life. I have worked in the preschool at Friends School for a community service credit, and learned how to deal with kids that have simple A.D.D. or even selective mutism. Last year I interned at Frank Porter Grahm both in the childcare center with the two and three year olds (again, learning about development while working with kids who had DiGeorges and high functioning autism) as well as on a research project, First School, which looks at ways to improve education in children ages three though eight.

Working in Dr. Brannon's lab fits right in with that line of interest. Today Sara, my mentor, told me about the two ways babies and adults process number. The first system is the analogue system, which is essentially the approximation system. If there are 20 peanuts on the table, you might approximate that there are about 15-25 peanuts. If there are 200 peanuts on the table, that margin of error goes up to say, 150-250 peanuts. It also describes if you hold two weights of different sizes in your hand. With a one to two ratio, you would have no problem saying which was heavier. With a 51 lb weight and a 52 lb weight you might have more trouble.

The object tracking system is the other system that we use. Most adults can keep track of about four things. Sara had me do a little test online (Here it is if you want to try-keep track of the dots that blink at the beginning-http://research.yale.edu/perception/oba/MOT.mov). Although four is the limit for most adults, people like air-traffic controllers can track up to nine or so objects on a screen. Infants, on the other hand, we think can only track three. Infants could distinguish one from three, or two from three, but not three from six. Somehow, that conversion between analogue and infant tracking failed. We are now doing studies that look more into this. Although it is somewhat confusing, as I learn more about it I understand it better.

As usual, the lemurs are quite adorable. I found out today that their names are themed according to species. The ring-tailed lemurs are Greek names (Aracus, Licinius, Teres), the mongoose lemurs Mexican (Miguel, Pedro, Rosalinda, Guillermo), the blue eyed lemurs after blue-eyed movie stars (Tarantino, Witherspoon, etc.). The list goes on. For those of you interested, the website: http://lemur.duke.edu/