The role of vision in the development of finger-number interactions: Finger-counting and finger-montring in blind children

摘要

Previous research has suggested that the use of the fingersmayplay afunctional role in the development of a mature counting system.However, the role of developmental vision in the elaboration of a fingernumeral representation remains unexplored. In the currentstudy, 14 congenitally blind children and 14 matched sighted controlsundertook three different test batteries that examined (a) generalcognitive abilities, (b) the spontaneous use of finger-countingand finger-montring strategies (where ‘‘finger-montring’’ is a termused to characterize the way people raise their fingers to show numerositiesto other people), and (c) the canonicity level of the fingercountingand finger-montring habits. Compared with sighted controls,blind children used their fingers less spontaneously to countand in a less canonical way to count and show quantities. Theseresults demonstrate that the absence of vision precludes the developmentof a typical finger numeral representation and suggest thatthe use of canonical finger-counting and finger-montring strategiesrelies on the visual recognition of particular hand shapes.