Enhancing the Symbolic Abilities of Preschoolers: Do Non-Symbolic Representations Outweigh Visual Features?

The Approximate Number System allows individuals to approximately perceivelarge quantities and is usually tested by comparing different dotsarray. However, during non-symbolic comparisons, performance can beimpacted by visual and non-numerical attributes of the stimuli. Our studyaims to explore the role of the quantities and size perception in preschoolers’in a double-digit numbers task. Different groups of participants weretrained with a non-symbolic training involving pairing each two-digit couplingwith the corresponding numerosities, with a size training pairing eachcoupling with a single dot of varying size or with a memory training. Theresults showed significant improvements in the non-symbolic and memorytraining groups but not in the size training group. This suggests that associatingdouble-digit numbers with quantities, as in non-symbolic training,enhances early preschoolers’ numerical abilities.