Infants Judge More and Less in Numbers

Numerical cognition begins early in life, before children learn formal math. Young children are later taught arithmetic in school, where they build skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Those basics support later work in geometry, algebra, calculus, physics, and statistics.

Very early in life?before the age of 1?humans develop a foundation in the mathematical understanding of numerical quantities, called numerical cognition.

To build this foundation, infants begin to form rough mental representations that allow them to make judgments about number and develop the concept of less versus more.

However, pro...