| Abstract: | Insofar as counting is directed toward a definite quantification goal, only items that qualify as valid instances of what is being quantified should be included in the count. Thus, the choice of what to treat as a unit to be counted depends upon one's quantification goals. The present research examined developmental changes in the way children define units for counting. In the first experiment, children were shown arrays of toy animals and asked to count either the number of families or the number of individuals within a family. In the second and third experiments, the stimuli were objects that came apart into two pieces. Children were shown arrays composed of some intact objects and some objects that were separated into their parts, and they were asked either to count the number of wholes or the number of pieces in the entire array. Virtually all the counts children generated were based on some type of common unit, even if it was only defined by physical discreteness. However, marked age differences emerged in children's adaptation of their counting units to what they were asked to count. |
