FIGURE 7.10 Infants’ general magnitude representations To test whether infants possess a general sense of magnitude, Lourenco and Longo (2010) first presented pairs of figures, such as those in the top panel, in which one decoration (here, black with white stripes) was associated with the larger value of one quantitative dimension (here, larger size). After this habituation phase, the infants were shown either congruent trials (bottom left), in which the same decoration accompanied the choice with the greater quantitative value (here, the greater number of objects), or incongruent trials (bottom right), in which that decoration accompanied the choice with the smaller quantitative value (here, the smaller number of objects). Regardless of the particular pair of quantitative dimensions used during the habituation and test phases, children looked longer during incongruent trials, indicating that they expected that particular decoration to continue to accompany the choice with the larger value on whichever quantitative dimension varied.

COURTESY OF STELLA LOURENCO