Abstract

This article reconsiders Case’s theory of central conceptual structures (CCS), examining the relation between working memory and the acquisition of quantitative CCS. The lead hypothesis is that the development of working memory capacity shapes the development of quantitative concepts (whole and rational numbers). Study I, with 779 children from preschool to grade 5, validated a measure of the whole number CCS and found that children’s understanding of whole number advances by one developmental level per additional unit of working memory capacity. Study II, with 92 sixth- and seventh-graders, found that a test of the rational number CCS was predicted by working memory capacity and, to a lesser extent, by intrusion errors in the listening span. We also identified 2 subsets of items that demand a capacity of 4 or 5 units, respectively. Overall, the results support Case’s CCS theory and clarify the role of working memory in the acquisition of numerical concepts. The relevance of these results in relation to the current debate is discussed, with extensive connections to other current theories of whole or rational number comprehension.

摘要

本文重新考虑了凯斯的中心概念结构（CCS）理论，研究了工作记忆与定量CCS获取之间的关系。主要假设是工作记忆能力的发展决定了定量概念（整体和有理数）的发展。研究I对779名从学龄前儿童到5年级的孩子进行了验证，验证了CCS整数的度量标准，发现每增加一单位工作记忆能力，孩子对整数的理解就会提高一个发展水平。带有92个六年级和七年级的研究II发现，有理数CCS的测试是通过工作记忆容量预测的，而在较小程度上，是通过听力跨度的入侵错误来预测的。我们还确定了分别需要4个或5个单位容量的2个子集。总体，结果支持Case的CCS理论，并阐明了工作记忆在获取数字概念中的作用。讨论了这些结果与当前辩论的相关性，并与整体或有理数理解的其他当前理论有广泛的联系。