PLoS ONE (Jan 2013)

The development of the mental representations of the magnitude of fractions.

  • Florence C Gabriel,
  • Denes Szucs,
  • Alain Content

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080016
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 11
p. e80016

Abstract

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We investigated the development of the mental representation of the magnitude of fractions during the initial stages of fraction learning in grade 5, 6 and 7 children as well as in adults. We examined the activation of global fraction magnitude in a numerical comparison task and a matching task. There were global distance effects in the comparison task, but not in the matching task. This suggests that the activation of the global magnitude representation of fractions is not automatic in all tasks involving magnitude judgments. The slope of the global distance effect increased during early fraction learning and declined by adulthood, demonstrating that the development of the fraction global distance effect differs from that of the integer distance effect.