Dear All,

We would like to remind you that the following talk by David Barner (UC San Diego), organized as part of the ELTE Cognitive Seminar series will take place at 17:00 (CET) tomorrow on Zoom!

Time and date: 17:00 (CET), Tuesday, 26. 04. 2022. 

Speaker: David Barner (UC San Diego, Language & Development Lab)

Title: What's innate about integer concepts?

Abstract: In 1978 Gelman and Gallistel proposed a powerful nativist thesis regarding the ontogenetic origin of integer concepts in human children, and argued for a series of five distinct "counting principles" which included one-to-one correspondence, stable order, and the cardinal principle. This proposal was met with several significant waves of responses from non-nativist psychologists, who argued that children's early counting behaviors do not respect the counting principles in various ways. Currently, the field has achieved a remarkable degree of consensus regarding the empirical facts of number word learning, but the questions set out by Gelman and Gallistel remain difficult to answer, and a clear synthesis is absent. In this talk I lay out these facts and suggest a new synthesis, according to which the core innate feature of number word learning is Hume's principle of one-to-one correspondence, somewhat akin to what Gelman & Gallistel argued. However, I also argue - against their thesis - that the format by which one-to-one is innately represented - i.e., some form of parallel enumeration - is not readily translated to the sequential algorithms of culturally constructed counting algorithms, explaining why children's early counting behaviors do not immediately express Hume's Principle. Second, compatible with Gelman & Gallistel, I argue that an innate (ostensibly linguistic) syntax is responsible for generating a stable count list that extends beyond the limits of human sequence learning. But contrary to them I argue that the procedures that are the output of this syntax precede the conceptual content that it represents - namely, a numerical successor function that generates an infinite number of numbers. Learning how to express one-to-one correspondence via a sequential algorithm, and how to extend this algorithm via a generative syntactic rule are the two key cultural innovations that form the basis of counting, and are also the key conceptual hurdles that children face when learning to count.

Zoom link:  https://ppk-elte-hu.zoom.us/j/99679798942?pwd=eDMvWDF1Y0tkSW5zemVMZ2plRzRrUT09

Meeting ID: 996 7979 8942

Passcode:  657058

If you have questions about the event, please contact us via email (nemecz.zsuzsanna@ppk.elte.hu or reka.schvajda@ppk.elte.hu).

We look forward to seeing you at the event,

Réka Schvajda

Zsuzsanna Nemecz

organizers

ELTE Department of Cognitive Psychology