Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: Perceptual tools such as telescopes allow the application of robust internal perceptual systems to apply beyond the range of their unadorned capacity.This paper explores how reasoning over culturally provided representations enables the perception of conceptually distant structures.In particular, this paper examines the behavior of typical adults estimating the position of large numbers (1 thousand to 1 billion) on a number line.Participants-even those who closely match linear placement-show discontinuities in placement in the immediate vicinity of 1 million.This pattern was predicted by a theoretical account in which linear behavior across many orders of magnitude is achieved through highly linear patterns of placement on smaller lines that are recycled and scaled to larger numerosities.Just as the telescope allows perception of the imperceptibly distant, reasoning processes over the natural numbers appear to allow intrinsically limited magnitudeperception systems to apply (with distortion) to much larger scales.
Authors: David Landy, Arthur Charlesworth, Erin Ottmar
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Institute of Education Sciences
OpenAlex ID: W2408071035