Math in actions: Actor mode reveals the true arithmetic abilities of French-speaking 2-year-olds in a magic task

Our previous studies provide some evidence of between-language effects on arithmetic performance in 2-year-olds. French-speaking children were especially biased by the use of the word un as a cardinal value and as an article in the singular/plural opposition (1 vs. the set 2, 3, …). Here we evaluated the ability of a new action-based assessment method to avoid this bias. A total of 80 French-speaking 2- and 3-year-olds were confronted with impossible (1 + 1 = 1 or 1 + 1 = 3) and possible (1 + 1 = 2) addition problems that triggered the bias. The problems were either presented to the children by the experimenter (onlooker mode) or realized by themselves (actor mode). The 2-year-olds performed better in the actor mode than in the onlooker mode. A subtraction control with no language ambiguity (2-1 = 2 or 1) was conducted with 80 other children; both modes elicited comparable performances regardless of age. These data indicate that the actor mode is effective for assessing arithmetic ability in French-speaking 2-year-olds.