Operational momentum in large-number addition and subtraction by 9-month-olds

Recent studies on nonsymbolic arithmetic have illustrated that under conditions that prevent exact calculation, adults display a systematic tendency to overestimate the answers to addition problems and underestimate the answers to subtraction problems. It has been suggested that this operational momentum results from exposure to a culture-specific practice of representing numbers spatially; alternatively, the mind may represent numbers in spatial terms from early in development. In the current study, we asked whether operational momentum is present during infancy, prior to exposure to culture-specific representations of numbers. Infants (9-month-olds) were shown videos of events involving the addition or subtraction of objects with three different types of outcomes: numerically correct, too large, and too small. Infants looked significantly longer only at those incorrect outcomes that violated the momentum of the arithmetic operation (i.e., at too-large outcomes in subtraction events and too-small outcomes in addition events). The presence of operational momentum during infancy indicates developmental continuity in the underlying mechanisms used when operating over numerical representations.