Cognirion, 43 (1992) 93-126

The earlv development of numerical

reasonin;:
Prentice Starkey
universityof Cu/ijornia,Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

Recewed May 30, lY91; final revision accepted October 17, 1991

Abstract

Starkey, P.. 1992. The early development of numerical reasoning. Cognition. 43: 93-126

Children of age l-4 years were found capable of engaging in numerical reasoning.
Children were presented with a task in which they placed a set of objects one by one
into an opaque container. An experimenter then visibly performed either an
addition, a subtraction, or no transformation on the screened set. Children were
then instructed to remove all objects from the container. Across two experiments,
children searched for and removed the correct number of objects when set
numerosity was small. Knowledge of numerical identity and knowledge of the
effects of addition and subtraction transformations on numerosity were present even
in children who had not yet begun to count verbally. These findings provide
evidence that the emergence of numerical reasoning does not depend upon the prior
development of a verbal counting ability or upon cultural experience with numbers.

Introduction

Over the past two decades, investigators have attempted to discover and catalog
the cognitive capabilities of young children. Considerable progress has been made
in the domain of numerical cognition (e.g., Carpenter, Moser, & Romberg, 1982;
Gelman & Gallistel, 1978; Ginsburg, 1983; Piaget, Grize, Szeminska, & Vinh
Bang, 1977; Saxe & Gearhart, 1988; Siegler & Robinson, 1982). It has been
found that preschool children possess abilities to enumerate sets of concrete
objects (Gelman & Gallistel, 1978; Klahr & Wallace, 1976) and that even infants
can enumerate sets that are small in numerosity (Starkey & Cooper, 1980;

Correspondence fo: Prentice Starkey, Institute of Human Development and School of Education.
Tolman Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

OOIO-0277/921$10.70 0 1992 - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All rights reserved

94 P. Starkey

Starkey, Spelke, & Gelman, 1983,199O; Strauss & Curtis, 1981; van Loosbroek &
Smitsman, 1990). It has also been found that preschool children possess abilities
to reason about numerosities early in life, well before the point at which they will
receive explicit tutoring in mathematics in school (Cooper, 1984; Ginsburg, 1983;
Siegler & Robinson, 1982; Starkey & Gelman, 1982). Furthermore, several of
these early abilities have been found to be universally present across a great
variety of sociocultural contexts (e.g., Ginsburg & Russell, 1981; Klein &
Starkey, 1988; Saxe & Posner, 1983).
The existence of these early abilities raises questions about their origins and
developmental precursors. Our focus in this paper is on the origins and precursors
of numerical reasoning. We use the term numerical reasoning in much the same
way as Gelman and Gallistel (1978), who drew a distinction between young
children’s numerical abstraction capabilities and their numerical reasoning
capabilities. Numerical abstraction (or enumeration) comprises a set of abilities
that are used to form representations of numerosities of sets. An example is
verbal counting. Numerical reasoning comprises a set of abilities that are used to
operate upon or mentally manipulate representations of numerosity.
Gelman and Gallistel’s (1978) model of the development of numerical abstrac-
tion - in particular the development of counting - has received much attention
from investigators (e.g., Briars & Siegler, 1984; Gelman & Meek, 1983; Sophian,
1988). In contrast,. there have been fewer empirical tests of Gelman and Gallis-
tel’s (1978) model of the development of numerical reasoning, for example, tests
for the presence of knowledge of numerical equivalence (Michie, 1984; Sophian,
1988) and knowledge of addition and subtraction operators (Starkey and Gelman,
1982). Thus some basic assumptions of this model remain untested. For example,
the model proposes that one numerical abstraction ability, verbal counting, is the
earliest and in preschool children a prerequisite ability for children to engage in
numerical reasoning. It is assumed that in this age group the computational
routines that carry out numerical reasoning function only in situations in which
verbal counting has taken place. This is assumed, because only counting is
thought to provide children with the type of representation that accesses these
routines early in life, a representation of a specific numerosity (e.g., “set a
contains 2 objects”). These routines are not accessed by representations of
relative, unspecified numerosities (e.g., “set a is more numerous than set b”, with
no absolute values represented). Gelman and Gallistel (1978) describe another
numerical abstraction ability, subitizing, as a late (relative to the onset of verbal
counting) developing form of covert counting. Since subitizing is modeled as a
late development, it is assumed that children first engage in numerical reasoning
when they become able to form specific numerical representations of sets by
verbally counting them.
It has recently been discovered that verbal counting is not the earliest
numerical abstraction ability to appear in the child’s repertoire. At least one
 Numerical reasoning 9s

numerical abstraction ability is present during infancy (Starkey, Spelke, &

Gelman, 1983, 1990; van Loosbroek & Smitsman, 1990), approximately two years
before verbal counting appears, and continues into the toddler and preschool
years and beyond (e.g., Fischer, 1991; Klahr & Wallace, 1976; Silverman & Rose.
1980). Infants and children can use this ability to accurately enumerate small sets
(i.e., sets of one to three or four items). The underlying nature of the ability,
which some researchers (e.g., Hughes, 1986; Klahr & Wallace, 1976; Starkey &
Cooper, 1980) have characterized as subitizing, as yet remains mostly unknown.
It is not known whether this ability is restricted to small sets or whether it can be
used to enumerate larger sets but with decreasing accuracy, but the ability is
known to be robust (Starkey, Spelke, & Gelman, 1991). Infants detect a
numerical correspondence between a small set of simultaneously displayed objects
and an equivalent set of successively presented sounds (Starkey et al., 1990). they
enumerate both homogeneous and heterogeneous sets (Starkey et al., 1990;
Strauss & Curtis, 1981) and moving as well as stationary displays (van Loosbroek
& Smitsman, 1990).
Gallistel and Gelman (1991) have recently argued that the infant’s ability is a
preverbal counting process: a process that uses tags other than verbal number
names. The preverbal counting process of the infant, like the verbal counting
process of the young child, is constrained by a set of counting principles. This
thesis, however, is speculative. To illustrate, there is no clear empirical evidence
that infants are using an ordered list of (nonverbal) tags. Such evidence is needed
in order to infer the stable order principle and other how-to-count principles in
Gelman and Gallistel’s model. An alternative possibility is that infants form
analogical representations of (small) sets and compare the numerosities of sets by
establishing one-to-one correspondences between the elements comprising them.
Conceivably, representations of two external sets could be directly compared or a
representation of an external set could be compared with a more permanent
analogical representation which would serve as a standard for sets of a given
numerosity.’ It is also conceivable that Klahr and Wallace’s (1976) template-
matching model of subitizing could if revised (given the robustness of the infant’s
ability) account for the data.
Whatever the nature of the mechanisms that underlie the infant’s numerical
abstraction ability, they enable infants to form representations of numerosities
and to discriminate among sets that differ in numerosity. Since the infant’s
numerical abstraction ability, like the older child’s verbal counting ability, forms

‘One-to-one correspondence could be used both to sort sets and to order them by numerosity. For
example, if two sets, a and b, are compared, and it is found that for each element in a there is a
corresponding element in b and for each element in b there is a corresponding element in a. then the
two sets are equivalent in numerosity. If two sets, a and b, are compared, and it is found that for each
element in a there is a corresponding element in b but for some element in h there is no corresponding
element in a, then set b is larger in numerosity than set a.
96 P. Starkey

representations of specific numerosities, it too may access computational routines

of numerical reasoning. If it does, numerical reasoning may be present prior to
the age Gelman and Gallistel (1978) have suggested - the age at which children
begin to use verbal counting to form representations of numerosity. And if
numerical reasoning is possible at such an early age, verbal counting may play a
less than central role in the early development of numerical reasoning. At the
very least, verbal counting would come to be viewed as one of multiple numerical
abstraction processes used in early numerical reasoning. Furthermore, since the
infant’s numerical abstraction ability emerges prior to the age at which conven-
tional numerical symbols are acquired, numerical reasoning by infants would
indicate that conventional symbols are not a prerequisite for the emergence of
numerical reasoning.
There have been a few attempts to determine whether infants or toddlers
possess numerical knowledge beyond a numerical abstraction capability. Prelimi-
nary attempts have been made to determine whether infants can organize
numerosities ordinally. Cooper (1984), using a habituation procedure, has pro-
vided evidence that suggests that by the second year of life infants may order
small sets numerically. Infants at lo-12 or 14-16 months were habituated to pairs
of sets, all of which were related numerically in the same way. Some infants were
presented with an a < b relation during habituation. (A numerically smaller set, a,
was displayed and removed and then a larger set, b, was displayed.) Other infants
were presented with an a > b relation. In the post-habituation phase, a < b, a = b,
and a > b relations were presented. The lo- to lZmonth-olds looked longer only
when the a = b relation was presented, a finding, Cooper suggests, that may stem
from infants’ encoding of the a < b and a > b relations as an a not equal to b
relation. The 14- to 16-month-olds, in contrast, looked longer at both novel
relations, a finding that may stem from the differentiation of the inequality
relation into less-than and greater-than relations.
Sophian and Adams (1987) p resented 14-, 18-, 24-, and 28-month-olds with
two small sets (sets of O-2 objects). The two sets were then screened from view by
covering them. When the screened sets were simply pushed within reach, subjects
at all ages chose the larger set. In the remaining problems, two equal sets of 1
object were screened and either 1 object was added to one set (resulting in a
l-object set and a 2-object set) or 1 object was subtracted from one set (resulting
in a O-object set and a l-object set), or two unequal sets of 0 versus 1 object were
screened and either 1 object was added to one set (resulting in a l-object set and
a 2-object set) or 1 object was subtracted from one set (resulting in a O-object set
and a l-object set). Older (24- and 2%month-old) toddlers reached for the larger
sets more often than for the smaller ones. Younger toddlers reached for the
transformed sets more often than for the untransformed ones, regardless of
numerosity. If the intriguing phenomenon observed in the older toddlers extends
to a wider range of set numerosities (e.g., to two equal but large sets, one of
 2Yurnerical reasoning 97

which then undergoes an addition or subtraction transformation, and when only

nonzero sets are included) and if probes determine that subjects expect to find a
set with a specific numerosity, then knowledge considerably beyond enumeration
could be credited to toddlers. At the very least, however, Sophian and Adams’
findings suggest that by the third year of life children possess some knowledge of
the effects of transformations on sets.
We conducted two experiments in order to test Gelman and Gallistel’s
assumption that the engagement of the computational routines of numerical
reasoning in young children depends upon the formation of specific numerical
representations by a verbal counting process. Our intent was to test this assump-
tion by presenting numerical problems both to children who could not yet count
verbally and to children who could count verbally but who did not spontaneously
do so when presented with our problems. Specifically, toddlers and young
children between 1; and 4 years of age were presented with numerical problems
in order to determine whether, in the absence of direct instructions to enumerate
a set of concrete objects, they nevertheless would form, transform, and utilize a
numerical representation of the set. Experiment 1 was an investigation of the
early development of children’s abilities to represent mentally the numerosity of a
set of objects and then to use their numerical representation to reconstruct the set
after it had been transferred to a container that screened it from view. If children
expect the numerosity of the set to be unchanged across a spatial displacement,
they can be granted knowledge of numerical identity - knowledge that comprises
one component of numerical reasoning. Experiment 2 was an investigation of the
early development of children’s abilities to represent mentally the numerosity of a
set and then to transform their representation in accordance with an addition or
subtraction transformation that was performed on the set while it was screened
from view. If children expect the numerosity of the set to be changed in a
particular way by an addition or subtraction transformation, they can be granted
knowledge of addition and subtraction - two further components of numerical
reasoning.
In order to investigate early numerical reasoning, it was necessary to develop a
new experimental task, because existing tasks were inadequate for toddlers or
infants. Existing tasks such as those used by Hughes (1986), Siegler and Robinson
(1982), and Starkey and Gelman (1982) require knowledge of the conventional
number names and hence are ill suited for use with very young children.’ After
considerable pilot research a new task, which we have dubbed the searchbox tusk.
was developed for the research project. The task was a variant of the search

‘At the time we were developing this task (1981-1982), Hughes (1986) was also developmg a
similar task called the box task. Hughes’ task could be adapted for very young children by having them
search for objects without using number names; however, a methodological problem would arise,
because tactual cues indicating whether the box is empty could then be used by children.
98 P. Starkey

paradigm originally used by Piaget (1954) to study the development of object

permanence. In the searchbox task, a child places a set of objects one by one into
an opaque container (a searchbox). An experimenter then visibly performs either
no transformation (Experiment 1) or an addition or subtraction transformation
(Experiment 2) on the screened set. The child then removes the set of objects one
by one until he or she believes that the entire set has been removed.
Three principle issues were addressed by Experiment 1. First, do children
spontaneously (i.e., without direct instructions) form a representation of the
numerosity of the set that is to be placed in the searchbox and then use this
representation to guide their search for the set after it has been screened from
view? Second, if children form a numerical representation, which numerical
abstraction ability do they spontaneously use to form the representation? Third, is
this ability robust or is it fragile? That is, can it be used despite differences in set
properties (specifically the numerosity of the set or the heterogeneity of its
composition) and in how the set is displayed (specifically whether all objects are
displayed simultaneously versus sequentially)?

Experiment 1

Method

Subjects
Forty children from middle-class families participated as subjects. Four age
groups - nine 24-month-olds (median age, 24 months; range, 23.5-25 months),
sixteen 30-month-olds (median age, 30 months; range, 29.5-30.5 months), eight
36-month-olds (median age, 36 months; range, 35-38 months), and seven 42-
month-olds (median age, 42 months; range, 41-43 months) - were included.
Approximately equal numbers of boys and girls were included in each age group.
One of the 2Cmonth-olds was subsequently excluded for failure to differentiate
among problems. (Preliminary research had determined that a few children
apparently fail to differentiate among problems. These children search the same
number of times, usually one time, on every problem. The following criterion was
developed to exclude such children from subsequent analyses: children who
searched a fixed number of times on at least 80% of the problems were to be
excluded from data analyses.) One additional child, a 42-month-old, was excluded
for noncompliance with the experimenter’s instructions.

Stimuli
The stimuli were 28 numerical identity problems in which no numerical
transformations (e.g., addition) were performed. In each problem, a set of l-5
objects (table-tennis balls) was displayed. The composition of the set was either
 Numerical reasoning 99

homogeneous (l-5 objects that were similar in form and color, for example a set
comprised of three red balls) or heterogeneous (3-4 objects that were similar in
form but dissimilar in color, for example a set comprised of one orange, one
green, and one blue ball). Balls were painted in one of five primary colors. Two
stimulus display conditions were included: a simultaneous display condition in
which all of the objects comprising a set were displayed simultaneously, and a
successive display condition in which all of the objects comprising a set were
displayed over time but only one object was visible at any given time.
The 28 problems were presented across two experimental sessions as follows.
The simultaneous display condition, which was made up of two identical blocks of
seven problems, was presented in one session, and the successive display condi-
tion, which also was made up of two identical blocks of seven problems, was
presented in the other session. Problem order within a block was random.

Procedure
The children were tested individually in a private laboratory room with a
parent present. All children participated in two experimental sessions (median
intersession interval, 11 days). Children were escorted directly into the laboratory
room upon arrival. They initially spent approximately 5-10 minutes playing with
toys (Playmobile miniature people and playground equipment). The experimen-
ter initially watched the child’s play and then began to interact with the child by
joining in the play. The child’s parent sat approximately 135” from the child’s
midline, initially interacting with the experimenter and, if necessary, facilitating
interaction between the experimenter and the child. After the child was judged to
be reasonably comfortable in the room and was speaking or responding to verbal
directives of the experimenter, the searchbox task was introduced. This task will
first be described as it was presented in the simultaneous display condition, and it
will then be described as it was presented in the successive display condition.
Simultaneous display condition. The experimenter introduced the searchbox
task to the child as a game. The child or, if necessary, the experimenter then
labeled the main components of the task: a searchbox (“box”), the objects to be
hidden and searched for (“balls”), and receptacles in which the objects were
placed both before transferring them to the searchbox and after removing them
from the searchbox (“eggcups”). The experimenter placed a ball in an eggcup
and proceeded to demonstrate how to put the ball in the searchbox (“Look at
what 1 can do. I can put the ball in the box.“) and how to remove it (“Let’s set if
I can find it. I found it!“) and to place it back in the cup. The child was then
asked to put the ball in the box (“Would you like to put the ball in the box?“)
and then to remove it (“Can you get it? Can you find it?“) and to place the ball
into an eggcup (“You got it! And could you put it in one of the cups? Very
good.“) After the practice problem, the 14 experimental problems included in the
condition were administered.
100 P. Starkey

In each problem, the child was shown a set of l-5 objects. The entire set was
displayed in provoked correspondence with a subset of an array of six eggcups.
The child was instructed to attend to the initial display (“Look at these balls”,
pointing to the display) and was monitored for compliance. Next, the child was
told to transfer the set object-by-object from the eggcups to the searchbox (“Put
all these balls in the box. Put in one at a time.“) As the child placed balls into the
searchbox, a concealed assistant surreptitiously removed them through an open-
ing in the back of the searchbox (see description of apparatus, below). One to two
seconds after the child had placed the last ball into the searchbox, he or she was
told to remove the set from the searchbox (“Now, can you find them? Take out
all the balls.“). This phrasing was used on all problems (including problems in
which only one ball had been placed in the searchbox) in order to avoid verbally
cueing the child as to whether one versus multiple balls were in the box. As balls
were removed, the child was reminded to place them in eggcups (“Put it in a
cup.“), but the child was not required to place balls in the same subset of eggcups
that had held them before they were transferred to the searchbox. The concealed
assistant surreptitiously watched the child on a video monitor and inserted an
object into the searchbox just prior to the child’s search. This procedure was
followed until all objects had been removed by the child or until the child
prematurely ceased searching.
A temporal criterion was used to decide whether the child had completed his
or her search for objects: after the child released a retrieved ball, the experimen-
ter sat quietly and commenced timing mentally the duration of the elapsed
interval from the offset of the previous search (release of the retrieved ball from
the child’s hand) to the present. As soon as the duration was judged to be equal
to or greater than twice the average duration of the child’s preceding intersearch
intervals in the current problem, the experimenter removed the objects from the
eggcups and began the presentation of the next problem. Thus, for each child the
absolute duration required to meet the criterion could vary from problem to
problem. (The videotape record indicated that, in practice, the experimenter
erred on the side of waiting even longer than required by the criterion, approxi-
mately 2.5 rather than 2.0 times longer than the child’s intersearch interval, and
that the experimenter indeed sat quietly during the child’s search and thus did not
provide nonverbal cues to terminate the search.)
The child was allowed to search as few or as many times as he or she wished
but was not allowed to find more than the veridical number of objects. When the
child searched too many times, no ball was found on the final search. For
example, if a set of two objects was put into the searchbox and the child then
searched twice, removing the two objects, and then searched a third time, he or
she would find the searchbox to be empty. The problem would be terminated at
that point. After the child removed the final ball of the set from the searchbox,
the assistant briefly inserted and then removed an extra ball in order to exclude
 Numerical reasoning 101

the possibility that the child’s decision to search again might be driven by some
cue that was associated with the assistant inserting the ball into the container.
When the child searched too few times and hence did not remove as many objects
as he or she had placed into the searchbox, the assistant retained the balls the
child erroneously failed to retrieve. This procedure was followed in order to avoid
giving the child visual feedback as to the correctness of his or her search (i.e.. by
seeing whether the experimenter removed any unretrieved balls from the box at
the end of the problem). No verbal feedback was given either.
In order to determine whether feedback would influence the child’s search
behavior, two groups of eight 30-month-olds were included in the experiment.
The no-feedback group was given no feedback when too few objects had been
retrieved from the searchbox. The feedback group saw the experimenter remove
the objects the child had erroneously failed to retrieve (“I think there might be
another one/some other ones. There was another one/some other ones.“). In all
other respects, the procedures followed for the no-feedback and the feedback
groups were identical.
Successive display condition. The searchbox task was introduced in the same
way as in the simultaneous display condition except that the experimenter
removed a ball from an opaque bag, held up the ball for the child to see (instead
of placing the ball in an eggcup), and placed the ball into the searchbox. When
the experimenter subsequently removed the ball from the searchbox, it was again
held up for the child to see and then was returned to the bag. The child was then
handed a ball from the bag and was instructed to place the ball into the
searchbox. After the child had done so, he or she was instructed to remove the
ball from the searchbox and to hand it to the experimenter. After one more
practice problem, again using one ball, the 14 experimental problems included in
the condition were administered.
In each of these problems, the child was handed a set of l-5 objects one by
one from the opaque bag. Immediately after the child placed an object into the
searchbox the next object in the set was removed from the bag and handed to him
or her. One to two seconds after the child had transferred all objects in the set to
the searchbox, he or she was asked to remove the set from the searchbox. The
child then removed a ball from the searchbox and handed it to the experimenter.
who immediately placed it into the bag. This continued until the child removed all
balls from the searchbox or ceased searching. In all other respects, the procedure
followed in this condition was identical to the procedure followed in the simulta-
neous display condition.
A brief counting task modeled after Gelman and Gallistel’s (1978) basic task
was administered in order to provide data on individual children’s ability to
produce verbal counts of sets like those presented in the searchbox task. In order
to avoid the possibility of biasing children toward the use of verbal counting
during administration of the searchbox task, the verbal counting task was
102 P. Starkey

administered at the end of the final session. The experimenter placed five balls in
eggcups that had been used in the simultaneous display condition and then told
children to count the set of balls. When children did not attempt to count, their
parents were instructed to try to elicit counting. Also, parents were asked whether
they had observed counting by their children at home.

Apparatus
The apparatus was a searchbox that was especially designed for the experi-
ment. It consisted of a lidded box with an opening in its top, a false floor, and a
hidden trap-door in its back. This opening in the top of the box was covered by
pieces of elastic fabric such that a person’s hand could be inserted through pieces
of the fabric and into the chamber of the searchbox without visually revealing the
chamber’s contents. The searchbox measured 20.3 x 25.4 x 30.5 cm. It housed a
roughly cubical (approximately 20 X 25 X 23 cm) chamber in which children
searched for objects in the searchbox. The searchbox was located on the floor
with its back surface attached to a 54-inch (1.37-m) high partition. One edge of
the partition was attached at a 90” angle to a second, similar partition. One
partition was adjacent to one wall of the laboratory room, and the other partition
was adjacent to another wall, thus forming an enclosure behind the searchbox.
An assistant sat concealed inside this enclosure. The back of the searchbox was
hinged, allowing the assistant access to the inside of the searchbox. A hinged false
floor in the searchbox could be lowered by the assistant so that balls could easily
be surreptitiously removed from or placed into the searchbox by the assistant.
The back and false floor of the searchbox made no audible sound when moved.
A color video camera and video cassette recorder (VCR) were used to obtain a
videotape record of the experimental sessions. A panel which was solid except for
a circular camera port concealed the camera and VCR from the child’s view. A
video monitor located behind the assistant’s enclosure enabled the assistant to see
the child’s actions. A microphone to the VCR was attached to the side of the
searchbox. The camera placement provided a clear view of the searchbox, a side
view of the experimenter’s face, and a frontal view of the child’s face and hands.

Design
There were three between-subjects factors in the design: 4 age levels (24, 30,
36, and 42 months), 2 sexes, and 2 orders of display conditions (problems
containing simultaneously displayed sets were solved first vs. problems containing
successively displayed sets were solved first). There were four within-subjects
factors: 2 display conditions (problems contained simultaneously displayed sets
vs. problems contained successively displayed sets), 5 set numerosities (l-5), 2 set
compositions (homogeneous vs. heterogeneous), and 2 problem blocks (block 1
and block 2, nested within display condition). For the 30-month-olds, there was
 Numerical reasoning 103

an additional between-subjects factor: 2 feedback conditions (feedback provided

vs. not provided).

Results

A JVC video editing control unit and color monitor were used in coding the data
from videotape in slow motion and in some instances frame by frame. Data were
reduced to (a) coded records of the number of searches children made for balls in
order to reconstruct the original set (inter-rater agreement on number of searches
2.95), (b) coded records of the durations of children’s intersearch intervals while
reconstructing the original set (inter-rater agreement on duration of search 2.95),
(c) transcriptions of children’s verbalizations and verbal counting behaviors.
In this section, we will first examine the data for general effects of age, sex,
and condition order and then will report analyses to determine whether children’s
levels of performance in the searchbox task exceeded the levels expected by
chance alone. We will then proceed to report data that bear upon the issue of
which numerical abstraction ability children used in solving the searchbox prob-
lems. This will include a tabulation of the rate of occurrence of verbal counting, a
comparison of performance in the two display conditions, and an analysis of set
numerosity effects. We then attempt to capture regularity in children’s errors
through an error analysis. Finally, set composition effects and findings from the
counting task will be examined.
Children’s solutions to the problems were scored as correct if the number of
times children searched for balls while reconstructing the original set corresponded
exactly to the original set’s numerosity. Solutions were scored as incorrect if
children searched too few or too many times for balls. We found that the solutions
of even the youngest children were often correct. On average, children correctly
solved about half (53%) of the set of 28 problems presented to them. A 4
(age) x 2 (sex) x 2 (or d er of display condition) analysis of variance on children’s
mean proportion of correct solutions across all problems revealed a significant
main effect of age, F(3/15) = 6.65, p < .005. Children’s proportions of correct
solutions across all problems at 24, 30, 36, and 42 months of age were 0.37, 0.52,
0.59, and 0.64, respectively. No other main effects or interactions were sig-
nificant.
One possible way to solve a searchbox problem (albeit with very limited
success) would be to attempt to guess the numerosity of the screened set. An
analysis was conducted to determine whether children relied on a simple guessing
strategy when attempting to reconstruct the set while it was screened from view.
In computing the proportion of correct solutions children can be expected to
produce by use of this strategy, it is important to note that the number of times a
child can possibly search during a searchbox problem changes with set numerosi-
104 P. Starkey

ty. For example, a child can search either once or twice when a set has a
numerosity of 1 (assuming that the child will attempt to search). To search once
and then to stop searching (i.e., to search the correct number of times) comprises
one possible type of response. To search twice and then to stop searching,
because nothing was found during the second search, comprises the other possible
type of response. For the purpose of our analysis, therefore, chance level on sets
of 1 object was considered to be l/2. Accordingly, chance levels on sets of 1,2, 3,
4, or 5 objects was considered to be 0.50, 0.33, 0.25, 0.20, and 0.17, respectively.
Thus, as numerosity increases, chance level decreases, and the proportion of
correct solutions needed in order to exceed chance decreases. These estimates of
chance-level performance are conservative in that they assume that children
would not guess that the numerosity of a screened set contains more than n + 1
items (e.g., that the numerosity of a screened l-item set is more than 2). If
children were to guess that numerosity is more than n + 1, then chance level
should be smaller than our estimate (e.g., smaller than l/2 for a l-item set).
Children’s proportions of correct solutions averaged across both display condi-
tions at each level of numerosity were calculated and were compared with the
above estimates of chance-level performance. As indicated in Table 1, the
observed level of performance exceeded the level expected by chance when set
numerosity was small (1, 2, or 3) but not when it was large (4 or 5).
A further question concerns which numerical abstraction ability children used
to solve searchbox problems. Children did not form numerical representations of
sets of objects by verbally counting them. They almost always solved the
searchbox problems in silence and without the motor behaviors that typically
accompany verbal counting by preschool children (e.g., sequential touching or
pointing to objects; see Gelman and Gallistel, 1978, for a description of speech
and motor behaviors preschool children produce while counting verbally). Spon-
taneous use of numerical (or other) terms to describe sets was rare. Only five
children (a 30-month-old, two 36-month-olds, and two 42-month-olds) verbally
counted a set or reported the numerosity of a set. Three of these five children did
so on just one problem, and two did so on five problems. In only one of these
cases did a child verbally count a set before retrieving it from the searchbox. In
the remaining cases, children verbally counted a set or simply reported its
numerosity after retrieving it from the searchbox.
We found that children correctly solved small-set problems in both display
conditions (Table 1). All age groups enumerated sets of l-3 items in both display
conditions, except for the 24-month-olds, who enumerated sets of l-3 items in the
simultaneous display condition but enumerated only sets of l-2 items in the
successive display condition. Relative difficulty of problem solving in the two
display conditions was examined in a planned comparison. Children’s proportions
of correct solutions to the small-set problems (specifically, problems containing
either homogeneous sets of l-3 items or heterogeneous sets of 3) in the
 .Vumerical remming IO5

Table 1. Mean proportions of correct solutions to Experiment 1 problems

Numerosity of
Numerosity of heterogeneous
homogeneous sets sets
Age Display
condition 1 2 3 4 5 3 3

24nf Simultaneous M .81** .81’” .sfi** .12 .Oh .38 .lY

Successive M .81** .69”* .31 .2.5 .06 .lY .0x
Overall M .81** .75** .44 .II (06 .28 .I3
S.D. .29 .33 .30 .26 .I2 .34 .1x

3Onf Simultaneous M 1.00** .81** .62*” .25 .06 .56*” 31

Successive M .88** .Y4** .75** .lY .12 .50* .7.5
Overall M .94** .88** .69** .‘2 09 .53** .2x
S.D. .12 .I3 .1X .‘l .13 .25 2.5

30f Simultaneous M .75* .81”* .69** .37* .06 .62** 19

Successive M .88** .81** .69** .I2 .06 .44 .1X
Overall M .81** .81** .6Y** .2s .06 .53** .I8
S.D. .18 .18 .18 .23 .I8 .31 .2x

3hnf Simultaneous M 1.00** 1.00** .69** .31 .I9 .70** .50**

Successive M .88** .88** .75** .38 .lY .56 I9
Overall M .‘)4** .94** .72*’ .34 .lY .63** .3-l
S.D. .12 .12 .3h .23 .29 .37 I’)

42nf Simultaneous M 1.00** .71** .u3** .?Y .36 .71** 50* *

Successive M 1.00** 1.00** ,7Y** .?l .25 .85** .62”*
Overall M 1.00** .86** .86** .25 .30 .7x** j6”
S.D. .oo .24 .70 .2Y .32 .26 2-t

Overall” Simultaneous M .95** .83”* .70** .24 .I7 .59** ..18”*

Successive M .89** .88** .05** .26 .16 .52** .28
Overall M .92** .86** .68** .25 .16 .5s** .32**
S.D. .18 .22 .33 .24 .24 .35 ._‘5

Note. Ages are given in months. nf and f refer to no-feedback and feedback groups. respectively.
“Means of the 30f group are not included in the overall means.
* p < .lO, two-tailed: **p < .05, two tailed.

simultaneous display condition were compared with their proportions correct to

the small-set problems in the successive display condition. No difference in
difficulty was found, t(30) = 1.06, p > .lO. (The same pattern was evident when
only the small homogeneous sets were included in the comparison, t(30) = 0.78,
p > .lO.) This pattern of findings thus provides support for the view that even
though children did not verbally count the original set in order to form a
numerically accurate representation of it, they nevertheless accurately enumer-
ated the set.
In contrast to children’s success at reconstructing small screened sets. their
106 P. Starkey

efforts to reconstruct large sets usually failed. The typical data pattern of children
included relatively few errors on sets of l-3 objects but many errors on sets of 4
and 5. Children’s performance when homogeneous sets of 4 items were presented
was significantly lower than when sets of 3 items were presented, t(30) = 6.56,
p < .Ol. Furthermore, performance levels on sets of 4 and 5 were similar to one
another, t(30) = 1.54, p > .lO. Since children were not at ceiling on sets of
numerosity 1, 2, and 3, comparisons were also possible at these levels of
numerosity. Performance levels were lower on sets of 2 items than on sets of 1,
t(30) = 2.11, p < .05, and were lower on sets of 3 items than on sets of 2,
t(30) = 3.77, p < .Ol.
We next conducted an error analysis to establish whether children’s errors were
systematic and, if so, what their specific characteristics were. Since most children’s
errors occurred on large set problems, any patterns revealed by this analysis for
the most part reflect performance on the large set problems. One criterion that
was used in categorizing children’s error patterns required the child to have made
at least three errors, the majority of which were of one type. Two predominant
types of error pattern were identified: (a) a fixed numerosity search pattern that
resulted from children’s attempts to solve problems by searching a fixed number
of times (typically three times) regardless of the number of objects they had
placed in the searchbox; and (b) an exhaustive search pattern that resulted from
children’s attempts to solve problems by searching until they found no more
objects in the searchbox. The predominant error patterns of 75% of children’s
sessions fell into one of these two categories (Table 2). In the remaining sessions,
children’s errors are designated as other or U-2 errors (Table 2). Patterns were
scored as other if either a rare error pattern or no identifiable error pattern was
predominant in a session (e.g., some children produced a mixture of fixed
numerosity search errors and exhaustive search errors with neither type compris-
ing a majority across all error trials). If children made too few (O-2) errors for an
error analysis to be conducted with any degree of confidence, their session was
scored as a 0-2 error session. When children used a fixed numerosity strategy,
their typical error was to search three times (Table 3, top portion).
One child (who was subsequently excluded) searched only once on most
problems, apparently failing to differentiate among problems. One possible
explanation for this search pattern is that this child located the first ball in the
search chamber, but then searched for other balls before removing the first ball
from the search chamber. No other balls were found (because the other balls
were concealed in another chamber), so the child thought the searchbox was
empty and stopped searching. It is possible that other children upon discovering
that the search container was mysteriously empty came to view the task as
artificial and began to use ad hoc strategies, such as searching three times
regardless of the number of objects they had placed in the searchbox. These
explanations, however, must remain speculative, because the design of the
 Numerical reasoning 107

Table 2. Mean proportions of Experiment 1 sessions containing a predominant

error pattern

Display condition

Age Error pattern Simultaneous Successive Mean

24nf Exhaustive search .75 .38 .56
Fixed numerosity .I2 .38 .25
Other .12 .12 .I2
O-2 errors .oo .I2 .06

30nf Exhaustive search .12 .2s .I9

Fixed numerosity .75 .38 .ih
Other .I2 .2s .I9
O-2 errors .oo .12 .06

30f Exhaustive search .50 .62 .i6

Fixed numerosity .I2 .I2 .I7
Other .38 .25 31
O-2 errors .oo .oo .oo

36nf Exhaustive search .50 .50 .io

Fixed numerosity .38 .25 .31
Other .oo .2s .12
O-2 errors .12 .25 1’1

42nf Exhaustive search .43 .I4

Fixed numerosity .29 .43
Other .14 00
O-2 errors .14 .33

Overall” Exhaustive search .45 .32

Fixed numerosity .38 .36
Other .22 .16
O-2 errors .06 .23
“Means of the 30f group are not included in the overall means

Table 3. Numbers of sessions containing a predominant fixed numerosity error

pattern

Fixed numerosity
Experiment Condition 1 2 3 4 5
1 Simultaneous 0 1 10 3 0
Successive 0 2 6 2 0

2 Addition 3 1 17 0 0
Subtraction 12 11 1 0 0
108 P. Starkey

searchbox did not allow us to observe children’s manual search behaviors inside
the search chamber.
Even though children’s search behaviors inside the search chamber were not
visible, it was evident from children’s occasional failures to find a ball that was in
the search chamber that at least some searches were not thorough. (When a ball
was searched for but was erroneously not found, the veridicality of the searchbox
was maintained by telling children to “feel all around in the box” and “in the
corners” until the ball was found.) These failures to find objects in the searchbox
led us to conduct a small pilot study in which a concealed assistant placed a ball in
a corner of the original cubical search chamber or in a cylindrical chamber. It was
found that children more frequently failed to find the ball when it was in a corner.
One possible explanation is that children did not sufficiently represent the internal
shape of the cubical chamber.
Our findings on children’s verbal counting ability, which were obtained at the
end of children’s final experimental session, indicated that the 24- and 30-month-
olds had not yet begun to count verbally. Our evidence for this was twofold. First,
the younger children in our sample did not count verbally when instructed to do
so by the experimenter. They exhibited no behaviors that would be scored as
counting in Gelman and Gallistel’s scoring system. Second, parental reports
confirmed that these children were not yet counting in any setting to the parents’
best knowledge. The older age groups were beginning to count; nevertheless
when presented with searchbox problems, they did not spontaneously do so.
Thus, the evidence clearly indicated that the 2-year-olds in our sample were not
yet counting verbally.
We now turn to children’s performance on the large-numerosity problems. The
most likely reason children used numerically undifferentiated strategies (the
exhaustive search and fixed numerosity strategies) on these problems was because
they were unable to represent the specific numerosities of the large sets. A further
question, however, is what led children to select the particular strategies they
used. The findings from one of our experimental conditions provide some relevant
information on this issue. In this condition, feedback was provided to children
when they searched too few times and thus failed to remove some of the objects
from the searchbox. This was done by having the experimenter visibly remove the
balls that children had failed to remove. The procedure was exploratory in nature,
so it was administered at only one intermediate.age level: 30 months. One group
of 30-month-olds was given feedback, and another group was not. Analyses of
variance of children’s mean proportions of correct solutions across all problems
revealed no significant effect of feedback. However, an examination of children’s
predominant error patterns revealed that the 30-month-old no-feedback children
searched exhaustively in only 19% of the experimental sessions and searched a
fixed number of times in 56%, whereas the feedback children searched exhaus-
tively in 56% of the sessions and searched a fixed number of times in 12%. Thus,
 Numericul reasonin,q IOY

although the presence of feedback did not lead children to enumerate large sets
accurately, it affected children’s strategy selection on large-numerosity problems.
(On small numerosity problems children continued to enumerate accurately.) It
can not be concluded that the feedback children simply learned the exhaustive
search strategy from the experimenter, because the experimenter did not model
this strategy. The experimenter stopped searching when the final ball was
removed. To summarize, the findings were that the strategy used on large-
numerosity problems (but not the strategy used on small-numerosity problems)
differed when feedback was provided as opposed to when it was not.
One objective of Experiment 1 was to determine whether the ability of
children to solve searchbox problems is robust or whether it is affected by a set’s
numerosity and composition and by how the set was displayed. A significant effect
of set numerosity was evident at all age levels, but an effect of display condition
(simultaneous vs. successive) was not. Another set property that was varied in the
experiment was set composition (homogeneous vs. heterogeneous composition).
Children were presented with problems containing either homogeneous sets of
l-5 objects or heterogeneous sets of 3-4. Children’s mean proportions of correct
solutions to the heterogeneous-set problems, averaged over display condition, are
given in Table 1. We compared children’s proportions of correct solutions on
heterogeneous sets with their performance on homogeneous sets of the same
numerosity. Planned comparisons revealed that children solved the homogeneous-
set problems more often than the heterogeneous-set problems when set numerosi-
ty was 3, t(30) = 2.20, p < .05, but not when it was 4. t(30) = 1.28. p > 10.

Discussion

Children did not simply attempt to guess the numerosity of a small set while it was
screened from view inside the searchbox. Instead, they formed a representation of
the set’s numerosity, retained the representation for a period of seconds (at least),
and utilized the representation in reconstructing the screened set. Children
formed and used numerical representations spontaneously, that is, without any
direct instruction to enumerate the original set or to use the product of their
numerical abstraction activity to guide their subsequent search for the set of
objects. A finding from one of our earlier searchbox experiments (Starkey, 1983)
provides additional evidence that children expected numerosity to be unchanged
by spatial displacement. In this experiment, 2-year-olds were presented with a
numerical identity problem in which they transferred a 2-object set to the
searchbox and then searched for it. We surreptitiously removed one object,
however, so after finding one object children found nothing when they reached
into the searchbox a second time. When children failed to find a second object
inside, they engaged in social referencing, as if they were seeking an explanation
110 P. Starkey

from the experimenter. Thus, in this experiment as well as in Experiment 1,

children demonstrated knowledge that the numerosities of sets were (or should
have been) unchanged by spatial displacements from the eggcups or the opaque
bag. Knowledge that set numerosity is not altered by spatial displacement
comprises one component of numerical reasoning: numerical identity.
Children’s competence was largely restricted to small sets (i.e., sets of l-3
items). On large-set problems, children were correct no more often than expected
by chance. It does not follow, however, that children were guessing on the small
proportion of large-set problems they did solve correctly. Children may have
guessed, but an alternative possibility is that the children occasionally enumerated
sets of 4 or 5 correctly and then searched accordingly. All we wish to conclude
from the comparisons of children’s performance levels with chance is that even
the youngest children included in the experiment successfully solved small-set
problems without resorting to guessing.
How did young children solve the small-set problems? Our findings indicate
that children enumerated small sets by use of the early numerical abstraction
ability that is known to be present as early as infancy. A set of four of our findings
indicates that this ability was used by the young children. First, verbal counting
rarely occurred. The younger children in our experiment could not yet count
verbally, and the older children who could count did not spontaneously do so.
Second, children enumerated sets of successively displayed and simultaneously
displayed sets. Third, they enumerated both homogeneous and heterogeneous
sets. Fourth, their performance on small sets, and in particular on sets of l-3
objects, was far superior to their performance on large sets. These are exactly the
findings one would expect if young children were to use their numerical abstrac-
tion ability.
Our error analysis revealed that most children’s errors were systematic rather
than random. Children rarely (if ever) used a random guessing strategy even
when presented with large-set problems. Instead, they used a fixed numerosity
strategy or an exhaustive search strategy. When children used a fixed numerosity
strategy, their typical error was to search three times, a numerical value that is at
the upper limit of the range of numerosities infants and very young children can
accurately and reliably enumerate. Discussion of the fixed numerosity strategy
will be deferred until the results of Experiment 2 have been reported, because
conditions included in that experiment bear upon the explanation of these
findings.
Our findings on the effect of set composition are interesting in light of prior
findings that appear to contradict one another. Some studies have found that set
composition affects performance in enumeration tasks (e.g., Gast, 1957; Siegel,
1973), but other studies have failed to find that set composition affects per-
formance (e.g., Beckmann, 1924; Gelman & Tucker, 1975). Gelman and Gallistel
(1978) attempt to reconcile these differences by analysis of the tasks used in the
 Numerical reasoning III

above studies into specific subcomponents. By extension, the set composition

effect obtained in Experiment 1 may be specific to the searchbox task. An
alternative way of looking at set composition effects, we argue, is to relate the
presence or absence of an effect not to subcomponents of tasks but rather to the
numerical abstraction ability employed by children in performing the task. To
illustrate, Gelman and Tucker’s (1975) task was usually solved by use of a verbal
counting ability, whereas Siegel’s (i973) task was usually solved by use of an
ability to pair objects one-to-one in corresponding sets. Our task was solved by
use of a third numerical abstraction ability, which may be less robust than verbal
counting when faced with the problem of enumerating heterogeneous sets. Thus,
heterogeneity effects can be traced to the numerical abstraction ability that the
tasks evoke?
Experiment 2 was an investigation of the early development of children’s
abilities to represent mentally the numerosity of a set and then to transform their
representation in accordance with an addition or subtraction transformation that
was performed on the set while it was screened from view. In order to maximize
the number of problems in which children represented the set’s initial (pretrans-
formation) numerosity, we presented only homogeneous sets of simultaneously
displayed objects. Homogeneous sets were selected, because overall performance
levels in Experiment 1 were higher when these sets were used than when
heterogeneous sets were used. Although no overall difference in performance was
found when objects comprising a set were displayed simultaneously versus
successively in Experiment 1, a slight difference in favor of the simultaneous
display condition was evident in the youngest age group (Table 1). Thus. only
simultaneously displayed sets were used.

Experiment 2

Method

Subjects
Fifty-six children from middle-class families participated as subjects. Six age
groups, sixteen l&month-olds (median age, 18 months; range, 17.5-18.5
months) - eight 24-month-olds (median age, 24 months; range, 23-24.5 months),
eight 30-month-olds (median age, 30 months; range, 29.5-30.5 months), eight
36-month-olds (median age, 36 months; range, 35-36.5 months). eight 42-month-

‘An effect of heterogeneity does not imply a total inability to enumerate heterogeneous sets.
Heterogeneity may only make accurate enumeration more difficult and thus depress performance.
Even infants can enumerate small heterogeneous sets (e.g., Starkey et al., 1990; Strauss & Curtis.
1981; van Loosbroek & Smitsman, 1990), but the relative difficulty of enumerating heterogeneous
versus homogeneous sets has yet to be investigated systematically in infants.
112 P. Starkey

olds (median age, 42 months; range, 41.5-43.5 months), and eight 48-month-olds
(median age, 48 months; range, 47-49 months) - were included. Approximately
equal numbers of boys and girls were included in each age group. Of these, four
children (one from each of the four younger age groups) were subsequently
excluded for failure to differentiate among problems. All four searched a fixed
number of times, once, on at least 80% of the problems. Seven additional
children, all l&month-olds, were excluded for noncompliance and were replaced
by other subjects.

Stimuli
The stimuli were 30 addition and subtraction problems, in which l-3 objects
were either added to or subtracted from a set, and 4 numerical identity problems
in which no numerical transformations were performed (Table 4). In each
problem, a set of l-5 objects (table-tennis balls) was displayed. The composition
of the set was homogeneous (objects were similar in form and color, for example
a set comprised of two red balls). Balls were painted in a primary color. Only the
simultaneous display condition was included in the experiment.
The 34 problems were presented across two experimental sessions as follows.
An addition condition, which was made up of two identical blocks of eight

Table 4. The problems of Experiment 2

Problem type”
Augend or Type of Addend or
Transformation minuend numerical subtrahend Proportion
condition numerositv transformation numerositv correctb
Addition 1 None (identity) .91* .12
0 + .86” .25
1 + .I7 4.21
1 + .52? .40
1 + .13 + .31
2 + .55 2 .44
2 + .18 ? .32
2 + .08 ” .21
3 + .15 + .26

Subtraction 1 None (identity) .88 2 .24

2 - .91 + .24
3 .52 f .43
3 .78 * .33
4 .14? .28
4 .22 + .33
4 .64? .39
5 .07 + .17
“Each of the 17 problem types was included once in block 1 and once in block 2 of the
problem type’s transformation condition, for a total of 34 problems.
hMean proportions of correct solutions over all age levels.
 Numerical reasoning 113

addition problems and one numerical identity problem, was presented in one
session, and a subtraction condition, which was made up of two identical blocks of
nine subtraction problems and one numerical identity problem, was presented in
the other session. Order of addition and subtraction problems within a block was
random.

Procedure
The experimental procedure was identical to the procedure followed in the
simultaneous display condition of Experiment 1 except for the following changes.
In all of the problems, the child initially placed objects into the searchbox one by
one as in the numerical identity problems. Then, in the addition problems, the
experimenter removed a ball from an opaque bag and placed it into the searchbox
(“Now watch what I’m doing. I’m putting another ball in.“). If more than one
object was to be added, this procedure was repeated the requisite number of
times to achieve a sum of the prescribed magnitude. In the subtraction problems,
the experimenter removed a ball from the searchbox and placed it into the
opaque bag (“Now watch what I’m doing. I’m taking a ball out.“). If more than
one object was to be subtracted, this procedure was repeated as in the addition
problems. After the addition or subtraction transformation had been performed,
the child was instructed to remove all of the balls from the searchbox. As in
Experiment 1, only one ball was in the chamber of the searchbox while the child
was executing a search. Feedback was not given when children failed to remove
the entire set from the searchbox. Children participated in two experimental
sessions (median intersession interval, 7 days).

Apparatus
After a considerable amount of pilot testing, a new searchbox was designed in
order to eliminate the need for a concealed assistant to remove objects from or to
insert objects into the searchbox surreptitiously. The final product was a mechani-
cal box that was operated by a remote control unit placed out of the child’s view,
next to the experimenter (Figure 1). One button on the control unit controlled
the positioning of a 27-cm diameter revolving panel that was located inside near
the top of the searchbox. A 12-cm diameter hole in one section of this panel
provided manual access to a chamber in the searchbox when the panel was
rotated into a particular position. This hole was covered by pieces of elastic fabric
such that a hand could be inserted through pieces of the fabric and into the
chamber without visually revealing the chamber’s contents.
The search chamber was cylindrical in shape (diameter, 10.2 cm; depth, 19 cm)
and comprised the shape within which children searched for objects in the
searchbox. This shape replaced the earlier cubical one which had occasionally
resulted in children’s failure to locate an object that had rolled into a corner. The
chamber’s small diameter and shallowness ensured that children would easily
114 P. Starkey

(b) (4
Figure 1.

locate an object when they searched. A mechanical trap-door in the floor of the
search chamber was controlled from the remote control unit. This made it
possible to remove objects from the search chamber surreptitiously and to place
them in a lower concealed chamber. The searchbox also housed concealed feeder
chutes, operated by remote control, which held a concealed bank of objects for
use in the experiment. This made it possible to place objects into the search
chamber surreptitiously. A combination of sound-treatment measures (interior
padding and background noise from a fan) rendered inaudible the movement of
concealed objects inside the searchbox. It was necessary to reload the searchbox’s
 Numericul reasoning 11s

concealed bank of objects after the child had completed the first block of
problems in a session. This was accomplished by having the child take a brief
(2-5-minute) break outside the room with a parent while the experimenter
prepared the searchbox for the next block of problems.
Sessions were videotaped. The camera placement provided a clear view of the
searchbox, a profile of the experimenter’s face and hands, and a frontal view of
the child’s face and hands.

Design
There were three between-subjects factors in the design: 6 age levels (18. 24,
30, 36, 42, and 48 months), 2 sexes, and 2 orders of transformation conditions
(problems containing addition transformations were solved first vs. problems
containing subtraction transformations were solved first). There were three
within-subjects factors: 2 transformation conditions (problems containing addition
transformations vs. problems containing subtraction transformations), 6 augend
or minuend numerosities (O-5), 3 addend or subtrahend numerosities (l-3), and
2 trial blocks (nested within transformation condition). Transformation condition
was a between-subjects factor at the l&month age level.

Results

We will first report our findings on whether young children knew that addition
and subtraction transformations change the numerosities of the screened sets and,
if so, whether they knew the ordinal effects of the transformations. We will also
describe our findings on young children’s ability to calculate the specific effects of
transformations (i.e., precise sums or remainders). Subsequent analyses will
examine the relative difficulty of addition and subtraction problems, and young
children’s typical error patterns will be described.
The first set of analyses was conducted to determine whether children knew
that addition and subtraction transformations changed the numerosity of the
original (i.e., augend or minuend) sets, with addition increasing the numerosity
and subtraction decreasing it. On the vast majority of the problems (84% of the
addition and 91% of the subtraction problems; 88% overall), the children
searched some number of times that differed from the number of objects in the
original set. On the remaining 12% of the problems, children erroneously
searched some number of times that corresponded to the numerosity of the
original set. (These errors may reflect lapses in children’s attention that occurred
while transformations were being performed by the experimenter rather than lack
of knowledge that addition and subtraction alter the numerosity of a set.) We next
calculated the percentage of solutions to addition problems in which children’s
sums (i.e., the numbers of times they searched in these problems) were less than.
116 P. Starkey

equal to, or greater than the numerosity of the augend set. Likewise, we
calculated the percentage of solutions to subtraction problems in which children’s
remainders were less than, equal to, or greater than the numerosity of the
minuend set. If children have some understanding of the ordinal effects of
addition and subtraction, we can expect to find that children’s sums (regardless of
whether they were correct) will be greater than the augend sets and that their
remainder sets will be less than the minuend sets. Fully 81% of children’s sums
and remainders were ordinally correct (i.e., sums were greater than augends and
remainders were smaller than minuends), 13% of children’s sums were equal to
the augend or minuend numerosity, and 6% were ordinally incorrect.
The percentage of ordinally correct solutions, however, may be inflated due to
a feature of the searchbox task, namely that on subtraction problems children
could not search for a number of times that exceeded the minuend numerosity.
The searchbox always contained the arithmetically correct number of objects, so
on a 3 - 1 problem, for example, children could search no more than three times,
the minuend numerosity, removing 2 objects and then searching a third time in
which no object is found. Furthermore, on addition problems in which the augend
numerosity was 1, children would have to search zero times in order to search for
a number of times that is less than the augend numerosity. Thus, the addition
problems whose augend numerosity is greater than 1 (i.e., 2 + 1, 2 + 2, 2 + 3, and
3 + 1) constitute the most conservative test of whether children’s searches were
ordinally correct. It was estimated that by chance alone 68% of children’s
searches on these four problems would exceed the augend numerosity (2 + 1:
possible answers are 1, 3, 4, and chance is 2/3 or 0.67; 2 + 2: possible answers are
1, 3, 4, 5, and chance is 314 or 0.75; 2 + 3: possible answers are 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and
chance is 4/5 or 0.80; 3 + 1: possible answers are 1, 2, 4, 5, and chance is 214 or
0.50; overall, chance is 0.68). Children’s proportions of ordinally correct solutions
were compared with the proportions expected by chance. It was found that 91%
of children’s solutions on these problems were ordinally correct. This percentage
was significantly higher than expected by chance, t(44) = 7.04, p < .Ol. Percen-
tages for the individual age groups were as follows: 64% (18 months), 100% (24
and 30 months), 98% (36 months), 93% (42 months), and 98% (48 months).
These percentages significantly exceeded chance at all ages except 18 months. The
18-month-olds’ data formed a bimodal distribution: the percentages of two
children were O%, and the remainder ranged from 60% to 100% (mean, 80%).
Thus, even in this conservative test, the data indicated that children, including
some of the youngest in our sample, knew the ordinal effect of the trans-
formation.
We next turned to the question of whether children were able to arrive at the
precise sum or remainder when presented with an addition or subtraction
problem. As in Experiment 1, we expected set size effects due to the numerical
abstraction ability used by young children to form numerical representations.
 Numerical reasoning 117

Specifically, we expected that if young children could solve searchbox addition or

subtraction problems, they would not solve problems containing a set of 4 or
more items. The largest set contained in the addition problems was the sum set
(i.e., the set produced by combining the augend and addend sets), so children
should usually fail to solve problems whose sums are 4 or more. The largest set
contained in the subtraction problems was the minuend set (i.e., the set from
which the subtrahend set was removed to produce the remainder set), so children
should usually fail to solve problems whose minuends are 4 or more.
Children’s solutions were scored as correct if the number of times children
searched corresponded exactly to the numerosity of the transformed set. On
average, children correctly solved about half (53%) of the set of 34 problems
presented to them. A 6 (age) x 2 (sex) X 2 (order of transformation condition)
analysis of variance was performed on the 24- to 48-month-olds’ mean proportions
of correct solutions across all problems. (The l&month-olds’ data were not
included, because transformation condition was a between-subjects factor at that
age level.) The analysis revealed a significant main effect of age. F(4 /20) = 2.89,
p < .05. Children’s proportions of correct solutions across all problems at 24, 30,
36, 42, and 48 months were 0.49, 0.52, 0.60, 0.58, and 0.62, respectively. No
other main effects or interactions were significant.
In order to examine the data for a set numerosity effect, the addition problems
were grouped by the largest set each problem contained (i.e., by the sum set that
was produced by combining the augend and addend sets), and subtraction
problems were grouped by the largest set each problem contained (i.e., by the
minuend set from which the subtrahend set was removed to produce the
remainder set). (See Table 4 for children’s proportions of correct solutions to
individual problems.) We then calculated children’s proportions of correct solu-
tions to problem groups at each level of numerosity. These proportions were then
compared with the values expected by chance,” and they are given in Table 5. We
found that in general children solved the small-set but not the large-set addition
and subtraction problems more often than expected by chance (Table 5). This
indicates that children did not simply guess the correct answer to the small-set
problems. Instead they solved small-set addition as well as subtraction problems
precisely. Performance by the 18-month-olds was somewhat shaky (see error
analyses below), but even they clearly were able to solve problems whose sum or
minuend did not exceed 2. As in Experiment 1, children rarely used verbal
counting at any point. They solved the problems in silence instead, and without
the motor behaviors that accompany verbal counting.

‘Values expected by chance on the subtraction problems were calculated as follows: problems with
a minuend of 2: 0.50 (2 - 1 problem)/1 = 0.50 (chance value); minuend of 3: 0.33 (3 ~ 1 problem) +
0.50 (3 - 2 problem)/2 = 0.42; minuend of 4: 0.25 (4 - 1 problem) + 0.33 (4 - 2 problem) + 0.50
(4 - 3 problem)/3 = 0.36; minuend of 5: 0.20 (5 - 1 problem)/1 = 0.20.
118 P.Starkey

Table 5. Mean proportions of correct solutions to Experiment 2 problems

Numerosity of sum or minuend

Transformation
Age condition 1” 2 3 4 5
18 Addition M .75** .61** .33 .13 .oo
Subtraction M .77** .66** .32 .24 .05
Overall M .76** .64** .32 .18 .OO
S.D. .22 .34 .26 .15 .OO

24 Addition M .86** .79** .46 .05 .oo

Subtraction M .79** 1.00** .64** .24 .02
Overall M .82** .89** .57** .14 .Ol
S.D. .12 .13 .23 .08 .03

30 Addition M 1.00** .71** .57* .02 .oo

Subtraction M .93** 1.00** .71** .33 .oo
Overall M .96** .86** .64** .18 .oo
S.D. .09 .13 .14 .08 .oo

36 Addition M 1.00** .86** .54** .33 .07

Subtraction M .93** 1.00** .71** .38 .07
Overall M .96** .93** .62** .36 .14
S.D. .09 .12 .14 .25 .28

42 Addition M .97** .88** .66** .25 .19

Subtraction M .88** .81** .72** .40 .06
Overall M .92*’ .84** .69** .32 .12
S.D. .22 .23 .21 .I1 .19

48 Addition M .94** .81** .66** .19 .19

Subtraction M 1.00** 1.00** .78** .42 .19
Overall M .97** .91** .72** .30 .19
SD. .06 .13 .28 .25 .22

Overall Addition M .91** .77** .53* .16 .08

S.D. .14 .27 .33 .23 .21
Subtraction M .88** .91** .66** .34 .07
S.D. .24 .24 .28 .22 .17
“Problems in this column are numerical identity and 0 + 1 problems.
* p c .lO, two-tailed; **p < .05, two-tailed.

Analysis of the data of the 24- to 48-month-olds revealed a robust set

numerosity effect. Children made increasing numbers of errors as sum numerosity
and minuend numerosity increased from 2 to 3 (t(36) = 5.69, p < .Ol), from 3 to 4
(t(36) = 9.36, p < .Ol), and from 4 to 5 (t(36) = 5.95, p < .Ol). The same pattern
was found when performance on addition problems and performance on subtrac-
tion were examined separately. Inspection of the 18-month-olds’ data also indi-
cated a set numerosity effect (Table 5).
We next compared the 24- to 48-month-olds’ performance on addition prob-
lems (mean proportion correct: 0.42 * 0.16) with their performance on subtrac-
 Numerical reasoning llY

tion problems (mean proportion correct: 0.53 2 0.13). Subtraction problems were
solved correctly significantly more often than addition problems, t(36) = 3.83.
p < .Ol.
As in Experiment 1, an error analysis was conducted to determine whether
errors were systematic. The analysis revealed that the predominant types of error
pattern were a fixed numerosity search pattern and an exhaustive search pattern
(Table 6). When children searched a fixed number of times, they typically
searched 3 times when presented with addition problems but searched 1 or 2 times
when presented with subtraction problems (Table 3). The l&month-olds pro-

Table 6. Mean proportions of Experiment 2 sessions containing a predominant

error pattern

Problem type
Age Error pattern Addition Subtraction Mean
18 Exhaustive search .oo .38 .lY
Fixed numerosity .40 .38 .3Y
Other .60 .25 .42
O-2 errors .oo 00 .oo

24 Exhaustive search .12 .12 I7

I

Fixed numerosity .38 .88 .h3

Other .50 .oo .2s
O-2 errors .oo .oo .oo

30 Exhaustive search .I2 .oo .06

Fixed numerosity .62 .62 .62
Other .25 .38 .31
O-2 errors .oo .oo 00

36 Exhaustive search .12 .12 12

Fixed numerosity .62 .62 .62
Other .25 .2s -75
O-2 errors .oo .oo 6;,

42 Exhaustive search .12 .jo 31

Fixed numerosity .62 .38 .50
Other .25 .12 19
O-2 errors .oo .oo .oo

48 Exhaustive search .38 .38 .3x

Fixed numerosity .38 .50 .34
Other .12 .oo .06
O-2 errors .12 .12 1’

Overall Exhaustive search .14 .25 1’)

Fixed numerosity SO .55 53
Other .33 .lY 26
O-2 errors .02 .02 .02
120 P. Starkey

duced one type of error that older children rarely produced. Several such errors
led to the exclusion of the child for noncompliance. The error seemed to stem
from children’s confusion as to whether balls should be removed from or placed
into the searchbox. Specifically, the younger children prematurely stopped putting
balls into the searchbox and then began removing balls, or they prematurely
stopped removing balls from the searchbox and then began reinserting them.
Some of these children also put a single ball from a larger set into and out of the
searchbox repeatedly. The remaining 18-month-olds typically made the same
types of errors as the older children (Table 6).

Discussion

In the addition and subtraction problems of this experiment, sets were displaced
from the array of eggcups to the searchbox. Sets, while screened from view inside
the searchbox, underwent an addition or subtraction transformation. On fully
88% of the addition and subtraction problems, children searched a number of
times that was different from the numerosity of the set before it was placed in the
searchbox and transformed. numerically. In contrast, on 53% of the numerical
identity problems of Experiment 1 (on 75% of the problems with sets of 1-3
items), children correctly searched a number of times that was identical to the
numerosity of the set before it was placed in the searchbox. These findings clearly
show that children treated the addition and subtraction problems differently from
the numerical identity problems. Even the very young children, the 18- and
24-month-olds who were at the transition between infancy and early childhood,
knew that the addition and subtraction transformations changed the numerosity of
the sets, and they knew this despite their inability to see the sets during the act of
transforming them. Furthermore, the children were often able to arrive at the
precise numerosity of the sums or remainders that were inside the searchbox.
When set numerosity exceeded children’s ability to determine the precise
numerosity of the sum or remainder, their erroneous sums were nonetheless
greater in numerosity than the actual augends and their erroneous remainders
were less in numerosity than the actual minuends. A common type of error
pattern was one in which children searched a fixed number of times during the
addition session or the subtraction session. This pattern occurred more often in
Experiment 2 (in 59% of the 24- to 42-month-olds’ sessions) than in Experiment 1
(in 37% of the same age groups’ sessions). The fixed number of times children
searched differed across experiments and conditions: on the numerical identity
problems of Experiment 1 and on the addition problems of Experiment 2,
children usually searched 3 times, but on the subtraction problems they searched
only 1 or 2 times (Table 3). Given that only one addition problem (3 + 1)
contained an augend whose numerosity was 3 or greater, and only one subtraction
 Numerical reasoning 12I

problem (2 - 1) contained a minuend whose numerosity was 2 or fewer, it was

usually ordinally correct to search 3 times on addition problems and to search 1 or
2 times on subtraction problems. Children’s erroneous answers, therefore, usually
were ordinally correct rather than random.

General discussion

In Experiment 1, children used a robust, early numerical abstraction ability to

form representations of the numerosities of small sets. This ability was sponta-
neously used both by children who could not yet count verbally and by children
who could. Children used these representations in their search for the sets that
had been screened from view inside the searchbox. Children’s search behaviors
indicated that they knew that the numerosities of the sets had not been changed
by the spatial displacement of the sets. Knowledge that numerical identity was
preserved across the spatial displacement is a component of numerical reasoning.
Our data show that it is present and can be evoked at a point in development
prior to the age at which children’s verbal counting ability has been observed.
In Experiment 2, children again used their early numerical abstraction ability
to form representations of the numerosities of small sets. Children’s search
behaviors indicated that they knew that the numerosities of sets had been
increased by the addition transformations and had been decreased by the
subtraction transformations. Furthermore, when set numerosity was small, even
very young children arrived at the precise sums and remainders that were
produced by transforming the original sets. This knowledge that numerosity was
changed in certain ways by the transformations comprises further components of
numerical reasoning, again at a point in development prior to the age at which
children’s verbal counting ability has been observed. Knowledge of addition and
subtraction may also have been elicited in Experiment 1 while children were
transferring objects to or from the searchbox (e.g., they may have iteratively
transformed their representation of the numerosity of the contents of the
searchbox).
The early emergence of this knowledge provides evidence that the earliest
numerical reasoning abilities do not depend upon the emergence of the counting
ability investigated by Gelman and Gallistel (1978). Also, it does not appear to
depend upon cultural experience with number. Our subjects’ parents were quite
surprised upon seeing that their children could solve numerical problems. Fur-
thermore, after children became able to count verbally, the computational
routines of their numerical reasoning continue to be accessed in the absence of
verbal counting.
Harris (1985) has explained some findings of one of our preliminary searchbox
experiments (Starkey, 1983) in terms of regularities infants observe in their
122 P. Starkey

natural environment. He proposes that in the infant’s environment there are

many occasions to observe addition and subtraction transformations being per-
formed on small sets (e.g., picking up one of two toys placed near the infant but
leaving the other toy in its place). Infants could enumerate small sets before and
after transformations and in this way acquire a set of particular number facts that
could subsequently be used to anticipate the effect of a particular transformation
on a set of a particular numerosity. When a searchbox problem was presented,
infants or toddlers drew upon this number fact knowledge to determine the sum
or remainder inside the searchbox. Harris’s position, however, requires elabora-
tion, in part because we found that children were much more likely to make
ordinally correct errors than ordinally incorrect ones. It is not obvious from
Harris’s position why errors would be distributed in this way. Also, subtraction
problems were significantly easier than addition problems. There is no obvious
basis (to us) for assuming that this pattern was obtained because subtractions have
occurred more often than additions in children’s environments. The general
problem with the position is that the infant’s experiences with sets undergoing
transformation do not explain how such experiences come to be organized by the
infant.
Another possible way children could solve searchbox problems is by calculating
specific sums and remainders, perhaps through the use of a form of imagery. It is
possible that a subprocess of kinetic imagery underlies children’s early numerical
reasoning abilities. Kosslyn, Margolis, Barrett, Goldknopf, and Daly (1990) have
found that, contrary to Piaget and Inhelder’s (1971) working assumption that
kinetic imagery does not develop until middle childhood, preschoolers possess at
least some subprocesses of kinetic imagery. Perhaps children in our searchbox
task formed a numerically accurate representation of the original set (e.g., an
analogical representation of the set), and then when the set was transformed
inside the searchbox they likewise transformed their representation, deleting or
inserting additional object representations in the image. The transformed repre-
sentation was then enumerated through use of children’s early numerical abstrac-
tion ability. This explanation would still find it necessary to attribute enumeration
to the child rather than just a remembrance of the set, because the set numerosity
effect obtained in the searchbox task was identical to the set numerosity effect
obtained in tasks that do not have the searchbox task’s memory requirements
(e.g., Starkey & Cooper, 1980, 1991). This explanation is radical in that it
assumes that kinetic imagery is present as early as age 11 years, given that prior
research has not investigated kinetic imagery in children below the age of 4;
years. Errors can be accounted for if addition triggers insertion and subtraction
triggers deletion and if the numbers of insertions or deletions made were
incorrect.
Another version of the imagery explanation is that children formed a numeri-
cally accurate representation of the original set as described above. When a
 Numerical reasorzing 12.1

subtraction was performed, they marked a number of items in the image that
corresponded to the numerosity of the subtrahend; when an addition was
performed, they formed a second image that corresponded to the numerosity of
the addend set. In both cases, as children removed objects from the searchbox,
they marked items in the image(s) until no unmarked items remained. Scanning
the image and marking objects are also kinetic in character, but different from the
subprocesses in the first kinetic imagery explanation. An advantage of the second
kinetic imagery explanation is that it readily accounts for why addition, which
involved the maintenance of two images, was more difficult than subtraction,
which involved only one. Errors can be accounted for if addition triggers
additional image formation and subtraction triggers the marking of objects.
Some plausibility is lent to the imagery hypothesis by the findings of a series of
experiments by Siegler and his collaborators (e.g., Siegler & Robinson, 1982;
Siegler & Shrager, 1984). To illustrate, in one experiment (Siegler and Robinson,
1982) 3- to 5-year-olds were presented with a task in which single sets of
imaginary objects underwent an addition transformation. The type and number of
objects comprising the augend set and the type and magnitude of the transforma-
tion were provided verbally in a word problem. At no point in the presentation of
the problems were sets physically present. Thus, children did not directly
enumerate a physical set. The children’s task was to state the numerosity of the
sum set. It was found that 3-year-olds usually solved only the small-set problems
correctly, and they typically did so without the use of verbal counting. Overt
strategies, including counting strategies, were evident in the older children.
Specifically, children sometimes held up subsets of their fingers which were
substituted for the imaginary objects and then they either verbally counted these
subsets and stated the answer or they did not verbally count but stated the answer
anyway. Also, children sometimes engaged in counting without using external
substitutes for the imagined objects. Overt strategies, however, were used by the
4- and 5-year-olds on only 38% of the problems, the majority of which were
large-set problems. No visible strategy was used on the remaining 620/o, including
many of the small-set problems.
In order to determine how closely the set numerosity effect in Siegler and
Robinson’s data resembled the one in our searchbox experiment, we requested
Siegler and Robinson’s raw data. The data on 4- and 5-year-olds’ solutions were
graciously provided. (The 3-year-olds’ data were not readily located.) We reanal-
yzed the 4-year-olds’ data, the age group closest to those included in our
experiment. The reanalysis revealed that in general, as sum numerosity increased,
the proportion of correct solutions decreased. As sum numerosity increased from
2 to 3 or from 4 to 5, the proportion of correct solutions decreased by lo%, or
less, but when sum numerosity increased from 3 to 4 the proportion of correct
solutions decreased by more than 20%. Thus, there was a discontinuity in Siegler
and Robinson’s data at the same point as the discontinuity in our data. This
124 P. Starkey

suggests that common mechanisms underlie children’s abilities to solve Siegler

and Robinson’s task and ours in the absence of overt strategies.
Siegler and Robinson’s explanation for children’s correct solutions in the
absence of overt strategies is that children recalled number facts they had
previously learned by verbally counting sets before and after transformations. We
think this is a plausible explanation for the solutions of children who are
experienced and skilled in the use of verbal counting. Younger children, however,
may be solving the small-set problems in a different way - by covertly computing
small sums. Children may be generating a numerically accurate representation of
the imaginary set, which is then transformed in accordance with the transforma-
tion described in the word problem. Determining whether factual knowledge as
Harris suggests, or imagery, or some other mechanism that underlies children’s
successful solutions to small set-problems will require further research, but such
research will take us closer to understanding how numerical reasoning originates
and develops early in life.
We conclude by relating our findings to Gelman and Gallistel’s (1978, Chapter
10) model of the early development of numerical reasoning. Our findings do
reveal some limitations in this model. Gelman and Gallistel state that “the system
of reasoning principles takes the numerosities of sets as defined through the
counting process . . . It follows that the numerical reasoning principles we outline
below come into play only in situations where the counting process can be more
or less relied upon to work” (p. 160). Our searchbox findings show that Gelman
and Gallistel’s model overstates the importance of the young child’s verbal
counting ability in the early development of numerical reasoning. In particular, it
incorrectly grants developmental priority and central status to this ability. We
have found that numerical reasoning can be evoked prior to the onset of verbal
counting. Furthermore, during the preschool years (the years Gelman and
Gallistel primarily focused on) numerical reasoning can be evoked by at least
three numerical abstraction abilities: (a) the numerical abstraction ability used by
children in our experiments; (b) verbal counting (e.g., Gelman & Gallistel, 1978;
Starkey & Gelman, 1982; and (c) an ability to establish one-to-one correspond-
ences directly between two sets of objects (e.g., Blevins-Knabe, Cooper, Starkey,
Mace, & Leitner, 1987; Klein, 1984). In our searchbox experiments, even at the
age at which verbal counting had clearly emerged, children did not spontaneously
use this counting ability in solving numerical identity, addition, or subtraction
problems. Other studies have also found that young children often do not
spontaneously rely upon verbal counting to solve addition and subtraction prob-
lems (e.g., Siegler & Robinson, 1982) to answer questions about the equivalence
of two sets (e.g., Beilin, 1968; Mehler & Bever, 1967; Piaget, 1968) or to
construct a set with a particular numerosity (e.g., Saxe, 1977; Sophian, 1987).
Thus, the central status afforded to verbal counting is not borne out by the data.
It is now evident that several numerical abstraction abilities rather than one are
 Numericul reasoning 12.5

present and used by young children in their numerical reasoning, and that at least
one numerical abstraction ability is used in numerical reasoning before verbal
counting is used for this purpose.

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