LABORATORIUM PSIKOLOGI LANJUT

LAPORAN PRAKTIKUM PSIKOLOGI KOGNITIF

AUTOMATIC PROCESSING

DISUSUN OLEH :

Nama : Ernawati Maghfiroh M

NPM : 11517981
Kelas : 3PA13
Tutor : Putri Rosalinda
No Komputer :

FAKULTAS PSIKOLOGI
UNIVERSITAS GUNADARMA
2020
I. Tujuan
Tujuan dari praktikum automatic processing ini adalah untuk menggambarkan
mengetahui bagaimana sulitnya secara sadar mengontrol proses yang terjadi
secara langsung

II. Point of View

Praktikum ini penting untuk mengetahui bagaimana mengontrol saat
pemrosesan otomatis
III. Teori Automatic Processing
A. Landasan Teori
1. Pengertian
Menurut Shiffrin dan Schneider (dalam Moskowitz, 2013)
mendefinisikan pemrosesan otomatis sebagai pemrosesan yang tidak
terbatas pada kapasitas, yaitu, tidak terpengaruh oleh keterbatasan memori
jangka pendek dan tidak tergantung pada perhatian.
Menurut Solso, Maclin & Maclin (2007) Pemrosesan otomatis adalah
aktivitas yang sering dilakukan akhirnya menjadi otomatis sehingga
memerlukan sedikit atensi dibanding dengan melakukan hal baru.
Menurut Palmeri (dalam Sternberg, Sternberg, 2012) proses otomatis
seperti menulis nama tidak melibatkan kontrol sadar.
Jadi Automatic Processing adalah pemrosesan menjadi otomatis akibat
aktivitas yang sering dilakukan tanpa kesadaran dan tidak dipengaruhi oleh
memori jangka pendek.

2. Karakteristik Automatic Processing

Menurut Posner dan Sydner (dalam Solso, Maclin dan Maclin, 2016)
ada tiga karakteristik pemrosesan otomatis yaitu:
a. Pemrosesan otomatis terjadi tanpa ada niat sadar
b. Pemrosesan otomatis tersembunyi dari kesadaran
 c. Pemrosesan otomatis menggunakan hanya sedikit sumber daya sadar
atau bahkan tidak menggunakan sumber daya sadar sama sekali).
3. Aspek – Aspek Automatic Processing
Menurut Fiedenberg & Silverman (2006) ada dua aspek automatic
processing yaitu:
a. Interference
manusia lupa bukan karena kehilangan memori tetapi karena informasi
lainnya menghalangi hal yang ingin diingati. Ada dua macam
interference:
1) Proactive interference
Dalam gangguan proaktif, informasi yang dipelajari sebelumnya
mengganggu informasi yang baru.
2) Retroactive Interference
Dalam gangguan retroaktif, informasi yang dipelajari kemudian
mengganggu informasi yang dipelajari sebelumnya.
b. Facilitation
Respon stimulus sederhana yang di gunakan untuk mengontrol system
kognitif secara sadar atau tidak untuk membantu melakukan
pemrosesan otomatis.

B. Jurnal Terkait
Children’s and Adults’ Automatic Processing of Proportion In a Stroop-
Like Task
Otomatisitas dianggap sebagai proses yang tidak disengaja, tidak
terkendali, mandiri, , murni digerakkan oleh stimulus, tidak sadar, efisien,
dan cepat (lihat Moors & DeHouwer, 2006, untuk ulasan). Sebagian besar
ahli fokus pada apa yang dipelajari proses otomatis dan menekankan
mekanisme pembelajaran yang mengarah ke pemrosesan
otomatis(Anderson, 1992; Logan, 1988). Di saat yang sama, mereka juga
 mengakui proses otomatis yang secara genetis merupakan bawaan
manusia(Hasher & Zacks, 1979). Proses-proses sedikit dipengaruhi oleh
perbedaan dalam usia, budaya, pendidikan, pengalaman, dan kecerdasan.
Aspek arus informasi, yaitu, spasial, informasi temporal, dan frekuensi,
yang diasumsikan secara otomatis dikodekan dalam proses ini. Hasil dalam
penelitian ini tidak memberikan bukti langsung tentang asal usul
representasi otomatis proporsi. Efek kesesuaian yang ditemukan dalam
penelitian ini adalah lumayan kuat dan stabil pada anak-anak berusia 5-6
tahun dan kecenderungannya ditunjukkan oleh anak-anak ini sangat mirip
dengan orang dewasa .Karena itu, terlepas dari kurangnya bukti langsun
yang mendasari pada awal kemunculan, efek kuat dan stabilisasi seiring
bertambahnya usia, dan dengan pertimbangan tidak adanya instruksi formal
atau bahkan label eksplisit tentang proporsi di usia prasekolah, kita tidak
bisa percaya otomatis representasi proporsi adalah proses yang diperoleh
dengan belajar ataupraktek. Temuan ini konsisten dengan argumen bahwa
anak-anak itu memiliki pemahaman proporsi yang intuitif, setidaknya
dalam tugas hanya melibatkan jumlah terus menerus (Spinillo & Bryant,
1999. Pemrosesan proporsi otomatis pada anak-anak sama kuatnya dengan
orang dewasa. Hasil ini memberikan bukti tentang mekanisme representasi
proporsi anak,mendukung argumen bahwa representasi ini didasarkan pada
pengkodean intuitif dan persepsi setidaknya dalam kondisi berkelanjutan.
IV. Pelaksanaan dan Hasil
A. Langkah-langkah
1. Buka laman http://cogscidemos.swarthmore.edu/
2. Pada sisi kiri web klik “Reserve Stroop” pada menu experiments.
3. Bacalah teori dan intruksi yang tertera pada laman “Reserve Stroop”,
setelah memahami instruksi, klik “Try it” .
4. Kemudian pada menu “Parameter” ketik jumlah trials = 40 setelah itu
klik “Start Experiment”
 5. Arah kan kursor di tengah kemudian klik tulisan “Click to start”.
6. Kemudian terdapat tulisan “blue” berwarna merah. Maka arahkan kursor
ke arah bulatan berwarna biru, bukan merah.
7. Jadi warna dari kata yang berada di tengah berfungsi sebagai distractor.
B. Hasil
Berdasarkan hasil praktikum Automatic Processing pada Kamis, 16
April 2020 berikut hasil yang di dapatkan pada saat praktikum.
 C. Pembahasan
Menurut Shiffrin dan Schneider (dalam,1977) mendefinisikan
pemrosesan otomatis sebagai pemrosesan yang tidak terbatas pada
kapasitas, yaitu, tidak terpengaruh oleh keterbatasan memori jangka
pendek dan tidak tergantung pada perhatian. Pada saat praktikum kita
diminta untuk mengklik warna yang sesuai dengan tulisan yang di instruksi
kan tanpa harus mengingat. Terdapat dua aspek automatic processing
menurut Fiedenberg & Silverman (2006) yaitu Interference dan
Facilitation. Interference adalah manusia lupa bukan karena kehilangan
memori tetapi karena informasi lainnya menghalangi hal yang ingin
diingati. Saat praktikum terdapat tulisan “yellow” tetapi tulisan tersebut
berwarna hijau kita tau warna kuning tapi karena tulisan “yellow” berwarna
hijau kita menjadi terdistrac jika kita tidak focus kita akan mengarahkan
kursor ke warna hijau bukan kuning. Warna hijau menghalangin informasi
yang sudah kita tahu sebelumnya. Aspek yang kedua adalah facilitation.
Facilitation adalah respon stimulus sederhana yang di gunakan untuk
mengontrol system kognitif secara sadar atau tidak untuk membantu
melakukan pemrosesan otomatis. Saat kita sedang melakukan praktikum
kita sebisa mungkin focus dan mengontrol diri agar tidak salah karena
tulisan “yellow” yang berwarna hijau.

V. Kesimpulan
Automatic Processing adalah bagaimana cara kita menontrol aktivitas yang
terus menerus secara otomatis. Dalam hasil praktikum yang dikerjakan oleh
praktikan maka dapat disimpulkan pemrosesan otomatis adalah bagaimana kita
mengontrol aktivitas pemrosesan yang dilakukan secara terus menerus dimana
hanya membutuhkan usaha yang sedikit untuk mempelajari informasi yang
telah dipelajari sebelumnya
Daftar Pustaka

Fiedenberg, F & Silverman, G. (2006). Cognitive sains: an introduction to the

studyof mind. United States of America: Hazelden.

Solso, Maclin & Maclin. (2014). Cognitive psychology eight edition. London: Pearson
Education Limited.

Yang, Y., Hu, Q., Wu, D & Yang, S. (2015). International Journal of Behavioral:
DevelopmentChildren’s and adults’ automatic processing of proportion in a
Stroop-like task. 39(2): 97–104.

Sternberg, R. J., & Sternberg, K. (2011). Cognitive psychology sixth edition.

Belmont: Cangage learning.

Moskowitz, B. G. (2013). Cognitive social psychology: the princeton symposium on

the legacy and future of social cognition. London : Psychology Press.

.
 International Journal of
Behavioral Development
Children’s and adults’ automatic processing 2015, Vol. 39(2) 97–104
ª The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permissions:
of proportion in a Stroop-like task sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0165025414556520
ijbd.sagepub.com

Ying Yang,1 Qingfen Hu,1 Di Wu,2 and Shuqi Yang1

Abstract
This current study examined human children’s and adults’ automatic processing of proportion using a Stroop-like paradigm. Preschool
children and university students compared the areas of two sectors that varied not only in absolute areas but also in the proportions they
occupied in their original rounds. A congruity effect was found in both age groups. The dimension of proportion interfered with adults’ and
children’s area comparison greatly and comparatively. These findings strongly suggest that preschool children automatically represent pro-
portion and provide evidence that this representation is intuitive and independent of formal school instruction.

Keywords
automatic processing, congruity effect, proportion comparison, Stroop-like task

Proportional reasoning is important and pervasive in not only
mathematics but also in daily life. Decades ago, proportional rea-
soning was believed to be extraordinarily difficult and acquired late
in childhood. According to Piaget and Inhelder (1975), to solve pro-
portional reasoning problems, children must make judgments about
second-order relations which they termed as ‘‘relations between
relations,’’ a hallmark of formal operational thinking which does
not appear until the age of about 11 years.
After some subsequent research that supported Piaget and
Inhelder’s perspective (e.g. Noelting, 1980), continuously emer-
ging studies showed a divergence about young children’s capa-
bility of proportional representation and reasoning. In tasks
involving discrete sets, evidence was found that the understand-
ing of proportion developed quite late. Children at school age
had great difficulties in focusing on the proportion (relevant
dimension) and at the same time discarding the absolute amount
(irrelevant dimension) in a variety of contexts including density
matching or comparing (Noelting, 1980), probability judging
(Chapman, 1975; Falk & Wilkening, 1998), and conventional
fractions (Pitkethly & Hunting, 1996). In other studies involving
continuous quantities, however, even preschoolers showed some
understanding about proportion in proportional matching, ana-
logy or calculation tasks (e.g. Mix, Levine, & Huttenlocher,
1999; Singer-Freeman & Goswami, 2001; Sophian, 2000; Spi-
nillo & Bryant, 1991) and probability judging tasks (e.g. Acre-
dolo, O’Connor, Banks, & Horobin, 1989; Schlottmann, 2001).
Some studies directly proved the strong effect of quantity type
on children’s performance in proportional reasoning tasks. Chil-
dren showed greater and earlier success in judging proportion
involving continuous quantities than in judging proportion
involving discrete quantities even if other variables were con-
trolled to be constant (Boyer, Levine, & Huttenlocher, 2008;
Jeong, Levine, & Huttenlocher, 2007).
The discrepancy between children’s achievement on propor-
tional reasoning problems involving discrete sets versus continuous
quantities inspired discussion about the way children process pro-
portional information. Some researchers suggested that this discre-
pancy reflects a divergence between intuitive and more explicit
proportional reasoning capacities of children (Boyer et al.,
2008). It was proposed that young children’s success on contin-
uous problems indicated that they had an intuitive understanding
or perceptual judgment of proportion (Boyer et al., 2008; Jeong
et al., 2007; Sophian, 2000). In reasoning proportion about con-
tinuous amount, they relied on an early emerging ability to per-
ceptually code the relative amount (Jeong et al., 2007). While
solving proportional problems involves discrete sets, children
were more likely to explicitly count. At this age, however, they
had difficulties forming a representation of the relative propor-
tion of discrete numerator to denominator. They misleadingly
focused on the number of numerator while the perceptual rela-
tion of the relative quantities was ignored or overwhelmed
(Boyer et al., 2008; Jeong et al., 2007). Therefore, this proposal
indicated that human children have an early understanding of
proportion. They can represent the relative relationship among
quantities in an early age and their difficulty in reasoning pro-
portion involving discrete quantities is resulted from disturbance
of the easily reached presentation of absolute quantities.
Some recent studies provided evidence for this suggestion.
Evidence showed that 12–14-month-old infants could predict the
probabilities of getting a lollipop they preferred from jars based on
the proportions (Denison & Xu, 2010). Moreover, even 6-month-
old infants were capable of extracting ratios across scenes as long
as the ratio was sufficiently large (McCrink & Wynn, 2007). After
being habituated to a certain ratio of two sets of objects, they
looked longer when an unfamiliar ratio was shown. These results
suggested that human infants have some capabilities to represent
proportions of discrete quantities. Their apparently-better
1
Beijing Normal University, China
2
Cedarville University, USA
Corresponding author:
Qingfen Hu, Beijing Normal University, Institute of Developmental
Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
Email: qingfenhu@bnu.edu.cn
98
performance than that of the older children might be attributed to
their inefficiency for counting and thereby the much weaker and
less explicit representations of the absolute quantities.
Evidence also showed that infants’ and young children’s repre-
sentation of relative quantities might be rather strong or even
stronger than their representation of absolute quantities. A study
found that 6.5-month-old infants dishabituated when the relation
between a dowel and its container changed but not when the
absolute size of both object changed while the relation was held
constant (Duffy, Huttenlocher, Levine, & Duffy, 2005). Addition-
ally, in a study which focused on children’s ability to encode and
discriminate extents, relative information was used as irrelevant
dimension and 4-year-olds showed high sensitivity to it (Duffy,
Huttenlocher, & Levine, 2005). Presented with a target dowel
inside a container and then two containers with dowel inside,
4-year-olds in this study were asked to determine which dowel
showed latterly was same as the original one. The size of the con-
tainers was manipulated so that it was a conflict situation, in
which the dowel that had the same absolute size as the original
occupied a different proportion in the new container, and the other
dowel, different in absolute size, occupied the same proportion as
the dowel in the original container. It was found that 4-year-olds
encoded only the relative information and chose the dowel which
had the same dowel-container relation as the original display
rather than the one with the same absolute dowel size. Although
this study was not designed purposively to explore children’s
understanding of proportion, its findings indicated that young
children had a highly spontaneous tendency to represent the rela-
tive information even when this kind of information is irrelevant
and sometimes disturbing to the ongoing task.
While this study did not focus on children’s proportional
understanding, it enlightened us on considering a new paradigm
for exploring children’s representation of proportion. While the
tasks varied considerably in existing studies about children’s
understanding of proportion, most studies instructed children
to compare or match on proportions and to discard absolute
amount. Answers based on the relation of numerator and
denominator were judged to be correct in these tasks, while
absolute amount often served as conflicting dimension. How-
ever, how to explain the tasks’ requirements to children has
been a big challenge in this area of research. Topics about pro-
portion are extremely difficult to be communicated with young
children in an explicit way. This difficulty somewhat restricted
the exploration of children’s understanding of proportion, espe-
cially for young children who lack the formal instruction about
proportion and cannot label them verbally.
Additionally, despite the fact that a great amount of effort has
been made to explore children’s understanding of proportion, very
little is known about the level of children’s processing about pro-
portion. The study of Duffy, Huttenlocher and Levine (2005)
showed that children’s representation of relative information
could be spontaneous, but did not refer to whether this process
would be automatically activated and hard to be inhibited.
Consistent with the hypothesis that children have an intuitive
understanding of proportion and represent the proportional infor-
mation perceptually, it might be expected that the representation
of proportion is an achievement which occurs quite early in
human’s life, independent of schooling, instructions or even the
ability to verbally label it, and also a process that is efficient, fast
and little resource-demanding. Then, it is reasonable to expect
automatic accessing of proportion, which is universal in human’s
International Journal of Behavioral Development 39(2)
life and even in an early age. To provide more direct evidence and
explore characteristics of children’s and adults’ processing of pro-
portion information, in the present study, we focus on whether
proportion could be represented with low-level attention.
The present study aimed to examine humans’ automatic repre-
sentation of proportion using a Stroop-like paradigm. The Stroop
paradigm has been extensively used in experimental psychology,
as one of the most usable and advisable tasks to examine the nature
of automaticity (for a review, see Logan, 1980). In a Stroop-like
task, participants make judgments on one dimension while there are
other dimensions that may agree or conflict with the one to be
judged. Participants’ performance suggests an automatic activation
of the irrelevant dimensions. Higher error rates and longer reaction
times would be found for incongruent trials than for congruent trials
(i.e., the congruity effect) if the irrelevant dimensions were
accessed automatically. Namely, the responses were automatically
facilitated in congruent trials and interfered in incongruent trials by
the irrelevant dimensions.
In the present study, sectors were used as stimuli with their areas
and the proportions they occupied in their original rounds as rele-
vant and irrelevant dimensions, respectively. Participants were pre-
sented with pairs of sectors and were asked to compare the areas of
them. Trials might be congruent, when the sector had a larger area
occupied a bigger proportion in its original round (Figure 1a);
incongruent, when the sector had a larger area occupied a smaller
proportion in its original round (Figure 1b). If participants’ perfor-
mance was worse in the incongruent condition, that is, being inter-
fered by the proportions which were irrelevant to the comparison, it
would provide evidence that the representation about proportion
was automatically activated.
Previous studies showed that ‘‘half’’ is an especially salient
proportion and whether the proportions crossed the ‘‘half’’ bound-
ary affected children’s performance in proportion matching tasks
(Spinillo & Bryant, 1991). In their study, 4–7-year-olds were pre-
sented with two boxes of blue and white bricks and asked which one
of them matched a picture of a rectangle composed of blue and
white. Results showed that 6- and 7-year-old children performed
much better when the two alternative choices crossed the ‘‘half’’
boundary (e.g. 3/8 blue vs. 5/8 blue) or involved ‘‘half’’ (e.g. 1/2
blue vs. 1/4 blue) than when the two choices did not cross the
‘‘half’’ boundary (e.g. 5/8 blue vs. 7/8 blue). The researchers sug-
gested that ‘‘half’’ plays a crucial role in children’s early propor-
tional reasoning and it might be as a category boundary.
Therefore, this factor was manipulated in the present study. The
pairs of sectors used in our design could be within-half,
including-half or cross-half. In the within-half pairs, the proportions
that two sectors represented were both less than 1/2 or more than
1/2. In the including-half pairs, one proportion was 1/2 and the
other was less or more than 1/2. In the cross-half pairs, one propor-
tion was less than 1/2 and the other was more than 1/2. We were
interested in investigating whether the different proportions would
be automatically activated in different level and thus have different
interference effects to the area comparisons.
In the present research, we focused on the question that whether
there was automatic accessing to proportion representation and
whether it appeared in an early age, rather than the developmental
changes in the magnitude of interference in our Stroop-like task.
The size of interference in Stroop-like tasks was proposed to be a
function of degree of the irrelevant dimension’s automaticity
(MacLeod & Dunbar, 1988). So, if the automatic accessing of pro-
portion became stronger with age, resulted from an increasing
Yang et al.
Figure 1. Examples of sector pairs in congruent condition (a) and in incongruent condition (b).
capability to present proportion information, we should expect an
increase of the interference. However, there was sufficient evidence
that the Stroop-like interference effect decreased markedly in size
with age and this decrease was believed to be the result of
the increasing capability of inhibition (Gerstadt, Hong, & Diamond,
1994; Hanauer & Brooks, 2003; Wright, Waterman, Prescott, &
Murdoch-Eaton, 2003). These two effects would counteract, result-
ing an unattributable developmental change in the size of interfer-
ence in the present design.
Therefore, what we were most concerned about in the present
study is whether the irrelevant dimension of proportion in this
Stroop-like task would interfere with the comparison of areas from
an early age. The findings would provide some valuable evidence
to the highly concerned topics about nature and origin of children’s
understanding of proportion. As the perceptual dimension is highly
automatic in the early life, it will greatly interfere with the compar-
ison for relevant dimension (Girelli, Lucangeli, & Butterworth,
2000). In this way, if the proportion representation was intuitive, per-
ceptual and early acquired, as some researchers currently believed
(Boyer et al., 2008; Jeong et al., 2007; Sophian, 2000), a robust inter-
ference effect would be expected at an early age. On the contrary, if
the process of representing proportion was gradually acquired and
became automatic only through extensive learning experience, we
should expect a later appearance of the interference effect.
Both adult and child participants were included in the present
study. University students were tested to evaluate the feasibility
of the experimental paradigm and to provide evidence about adults’
automatic accessing to proportion representation. In addition, 5- and
6-year-old children were tested to explore whether the automatic
representing of proportion was appeared at preschool age.
99
Method
Participants
Adult participants were 35 undergraduate and postgraduate students
(18 female, 17 male) recruited from Beijing Normal University.
The mean age was 21 years (range 18–25).
Child participants were 30 children aged 5 years and 30 children
aged 6 years, recruited from a kindergarten in Beijing, China. The
5-year-olds (16 female, 14 male) ranged from 4 years 7 months to
5 years 6 months, with a mean age of 5 years 1 month. The 6-year-
olds (14 female, 16 male) ranged from 5 years 7 months to 6 years
6 months, with a mean age of 6 years 0 month. While all these par-
ticipants were taken into analysis for error rates, only 28 of the
6-year-olds were included in the analysis for correct RT because
two children in this age group responded falsely in all the trials
in one of the conditions, resulting in a missing value.
Initially, we tried to test 4-year-olds but finally dropped this age
group because the task appeared to be too difficult for them. In the
experiment, children in this age group stopped answering fre-
quently and complained that they could not judge which sector was
bigger. Especially in the second block, several children paused
occasionally, looking around or talking to the experimenter. This
made the data of reaction time in this age group invalid and the
accuracy questionable compared with other age groups.
Stimuli
Each stimulus consisted of two red sectors that were displayed
side by side with a white background on a computer screen. The
100 International Journal of Behavioral Development 39(2)

Table 1. Critical stimuli used in the present study.

Sector 1 Sector 2

Proportion Area (mm2) Radius (mm) Proportion Area (mm2) Radius (mm)

Congruent Within-half 1/4 900 33.85 1/3 2400 47.87

2/3 900 20.72 3/4 2400 31.91
Including-half 1/4 900 33.85 1/2 2400 39.08
1/2 900 23.93 3/4 2400 31.91
Cross-half 1/4 900 33.85 2/3 2400 33.85
1/3 900 29.31 3/4 2400 31.91
Incongruent Within-half 1/4 2400 55.27 1/3 900 29.31
2/3 2400 33.85 3/4 900 19.54
Including-half 1/4 2400 55.27 1/2 900 23.93
1/2 2400 39.08 3/4 900 19.54
Cross-half 1/4 2400 55.27 2/3 900 20.72
1/3 2400 47.87 3/4 900 19.54

Note. Within-half pairs: the proportions of the two sectors occupied in their original round do not cross the ‘‘half’’ boundary, both less than or more than 1/2;
Including-half pairs: one of the proportions of the two sectors occupied in their original round is half; Cross-half pairs: the proportions of the two sectors occupied
in their original round cross the ‘‘half’’ boundary, one less than 1/2 and the other more than 1/2.

center-to-center distance between the two sectors was 174 mm. In
order to avoid additional strategies for comparing, the sectors were
primarily made with their left edges vertical and then turned 60,
150, 240, or 330 degrees clockwise. This meant that each sector had
four directions. In each stimulus pair, the two sectors to be com-
pared did not have identical direction. The same number of each
direction of every sector was used.
Table 1 showed the critical stimuli used. In congruent pairs, the
sector whose area was larger occupied a bigger proportion in its
original round (Figure 1a). In incongruent pairs, the sector whose
area was larger occupied a smaller proportion in its original round
(Figure 1b). The area ratio of two sectors was constantly 3/8, with
one sector was 900 mm2 and the other was 2400 mm2.
Each sector is a part of a round, with the sector and the round
having the same radius, and 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3 and 3/4 were used for
the proportions of the sectors occupying their original rounds. In
this way, the proportions that two sectors represented in each pair
could be within-half, including-half or cross-half. In the within-
half pairs, the proportions that two sectors represented were both
less than 1/2 (1/4 vs. 1/3) or more than 1/2 (2/3 vs. 3/4). The dis-
tances between each two proportions were 1/12. In the cross-half
pairs, one proportion was less than 1/2 and the other was more than
1/2 (1/3 vs. 3/4, 1/4 vs. 2/3). The distances between each two pro-
portions were 5/12. In the including-half pairs, one proportion was
1/2 and the other was less or more than 1/2 (1/4 vs. 1/2, 3/4 vs. 1/2).
The distances between each two proportions were 3/12. Thus, this
factor and distance effects were completely confounded.
It is worth noting that the radius of a sector was entirely deter-
mined by its area and the proportion it represented. Therefore, the
radiuses inevitably co-varied with sectors’ areas and proportions in
this design, making an irrelevant variable. However, for the sector
pairs in this study, the direction of variation in radiuses was con-
stantly consistent with that of areas. The sector that had larger
radius always had larger area (see Table 1). So, if the representation
of radiuses would also be activated, they would facilitate the area
comparison rather than interfere with it. At the same time, the
length difference of radiuses was larger in incongruent pairs than
in congruent pairs. So, if the radius facilitating area comparison
in deed, area–proportion incongruent pairs should be facilitated
more. This insured the validity of the interference effect in the
present design. If the performance was worse in the area–proportion
incongruent condition than in the congruent condition (i.e., the
interference effect occurred), it must be an interference effect of the
disturbing proportions, rather than the uncoordinated facilitation of
radiuses.1
In order to enhance the variety of stimuli to be compared and
avoid potential strategies, sector pairs with 5/8 area ratio (one sector
was 1,500 mm2 and the other was 2,400 mm2) were added as filler
items. The congruity and proportion factors of the 5/8 pairs were set
identically with those of the 3/8 pairs. However, the 5/8 items were
not suitable for exploring the interference effect of proportion in the
present study, because the problem caused by covariation of
radiuses with area and proportions was severe in these pairs, some-
times even making the variation of radiuses inconsistent with that of
areas. Therefore, even if the participants’ performance was worse in
the area-proportion incongruent condition than in the congruent
condition, it was difficult to determine whether it was the interfer-
ence effect by inconsistent proportion or by inconsistent radius.
Therefore, the 5/8 items were not included in data analysis.
In each block, each of these 12 critical pairs (2 congruence lev-
els  6 proportion pairs) and 12 filler pairs of sectors was presented
twice, either with the larger area to the left, or to the right, giving 48
([12 þ 12]  2) trials in each block. The stimuli in each block were
presented in a random order made by E-prime. There were two
blocks in which same stimuli were presented in different orders.
So, each participant did a total of 96 trials (48 critical trials and
48 filler trials).
Procedure
The participant’s task was to decide which of two sectors in a given
display had a larger area.
Participants were seated about 50 cm from the computer screen.
Each trial began with two fixation points displayed simultaneously
for 1,000 ms and followed by a pair of sectors. The pair of sectors
stayed on the screen until the participant responded or for 5,000 ms
without any responses. The inter-stimulus interval was 500 ms.
Each participant first performed 10 practice trials. Then, each par-
ticipant received two test blocks, each of which had 48 trials. The
participants had a few minutes’ rest between the two blocks.
Yang et al.
Table 2. Means of adults’ and children’s error rates and correct response times.
Within-half
% Error Response time
Children Congruent 4.30 1050.03
Incongruent 8.14 1110.53
Adult Congruent 0.49 635.47
Incongruent 3.80 670.98
Note. n (children) ¼ 58; n (adult) ¼ 35. Within-half pairs: the proportions of the two sectors occupied in their original round do not cross the ‘‘half’’ boundary, both less
than or more than 1/2; Including-half pairs: one of the proportions of the two sectors occupied in their original round is half; Cross-half pairs: the proportions of the
two sectors occupied in their original round cross the ‘‘half’’ boundary, one less than 1/2 and the other more than 1/2.
Figure 2. Congruity effect in error rates for each age group.
Note. n (children) ¼ 58; n (adult) ¼ 35.
Participants were instructed to press the left- or right-hand key
(F and J) according to which position of the sector had the larger
area. Both speed and accuracy were emphasized in instructions.
The software E-prime 2.0, installed on a ThinkPad laptop, was
used to present the stimuli and record participants’ responses and
their reaction times (RT).
Results
Table 2 summarizes the participants’ mean error rates and the aver-
age reaction times of correct responses. Preliminary analyses
revealed that there was no significant age main effect between the
two childhood-age groups, nor any significant effect was found for
the interactions involving age, indicating that response pattern of
5- and 6-year-olds were similar. As a result, we collapsed the data
of these two groups to create a single ‘‘child group,’’ and compared
the performance of children to that of adults.
The overall error rate was 3.95% for adults and 7.82% for
children. The low error rate indicates that participants understood
the experiment guideline and made the comparisons based on the
sectors’ areas rather than the proportions the sectors represented.
The average error rate for every participant in each condition
was calculated and entered as dependent variable in a repeated-
101
Including-half Cross-half Total
% Error Response time % Error Response time % Error Response time
1.69 1134.74 3.30 1135.07 3.10 1106.62
13.34 1160.29 16.19 1051.15 12.55 1107.32
0.34 606.88 0.34 592.33 0.39 611.56
3.89 683.74 14.86 677.75 7.52 677.49
measures ANOVA with congruity (congruent and incongruent) and
the proportions that sectors represented (within-half, including-
half, and cross-half) as within-subjects factors and age group as a
between-subjects factor. Results showed that the main effect of
congruity was significant, F(1, 93) ¼ 20.19, p < .001, partial
2 ¼ .18. Participants made more mistakes in the incongruent
(M ¼ 10.69%, SE ¼ 1.84%) than in the congruent conditions
(M ¼ 2.10%, SE ¼ 0.47%). The main effect of proportion was also
significant, F(1.60, 148.39) ¼ 14.33, p < .001, partial 2 ¼ .13, with
the error rate increasing from about 5% in within-half and
including-half pairs (M ¼ 4.72%, SE ¼ 0.91% for within-half pairs
and M ¼ 5.52%, SE ¼ 1.17% for including-half pairs) to 8.95%
(SE ¼ 1.28%) in cross-half pairs. The error rate in cross-half
pairs was significantly higher than in within-half pairs, t(94) ¼
4.21, p < .001, d ¼ 0.37, and in including-half pairs, t(94) ¼
3.58, p ¼ .001, d ¼ 0.43, but there was no difference between the
latter two, t(94) ¼ 1.29, p ¼ .20, d ¼ 0.13.
The interaction between these two factors was significant,
F(1.70, 157.94) ¼ 14.08, p < .001, partial 2 ¼ .13. Furthermore,
the interaction among all the three factors was also significant,
F(1.70, 157.94) ¼ 3.55, p < .005, partial 2 ¼ .037 (See Figure 2).
Therefore, the further analysis focused on the performance patterns
of the two age groups respectively.
For adults, the effect of congruity was highly modulated by pro-
portion, F(1.35, 45.94) ¼ 10.67, p ¼ .001, partial 2 ¼ .24. The con-
gruity effect was significant for all the three proportion conditions,
while the difference of error rates between congruent and incongru-
ent conditions was much larger in cross-half pairs, t(34) ¼ 4.14, p <
.001, d ¼ 0.70, than in within-half pairs, t(34) ¼ 2.05, p ¼ .048, d ¼
0.35, and in including-half pairs, t(34) ¼ 2.23, p ¼ .03, d ¼ 0.38.
For children, the effect of congruity was moderately modulated
by proportion, F(1.74, 100.83) ¼ 8.04, p ¼ .001, partial 2 ¼ .12.
The congruity effect was also significant for all the three proportion
conditions. Children made more errors in congruent pairs in all the
three proportion conditions. Unlike adults, however, the difference
of children’s error rates between congruent and incongruent condi-
tions was larger in cross-half pairs, t(59) ¼ 3.54, p ¼ .001, d ¼ 0.46,
and including-half pairs, t(59) ¼ 3.71, p < .001, d ¼ 0.48, than in
within-half pairs, t(59) ¼ 2.10, p ¼ .04, d ¼ 0.27.
Another repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to analyse
the participants’ RTs of correct responses. The main effect of con-
gruity was significant, F(1, 91) ¼ 4.94, p ¼ .029, partial 2 ¼ .05.
Overall, participants spent a longer time comparing the areas of the
sectors in the incongruent conditions (M ¼ 947.40, SE ¼ 34.07)
than in the congruent conditions (M ¼ 922.38, SE ¼35.07).
The main effect of age group also reached significant level,
F(1, 91) ¼ 85.58, p < .001, partial 2 ¼ .49, adults (M ¼ 644.53,
102
Figure 3. Congruity effect in response times for each age group.
Note. n (children) ¼ 58; n (adult) ¼ 35.
SE ¼ 24.37) compared more rapidly than children (M ¼ 1110.11,
SE ¼ 36.17). The interaction between congruity and age was also
significant, F(1, 91) ¼ 4.84, p ¼ .03, partial 2 ¼ .05. Simple effect
tests showed that the congruity effect was significant only for
adults, t(1, 34) ¼ 4.34, p < .001, d ¼ 0 .73, not for children,
t(1, 34) ¼ 0.016, p ¼ .99, d ¼ 0 .00.
In addition, the interaction of all the three factors was signifi-
cant, F(1.94, 176.16) ¼ 5.12, p ¼ .008, partial 2 ¼ .05 (See
Figure 3). Therefore, the further analysis focused on the perfor-
mance patterns of the two age groups respectively.
For adults, only the main effect of congruity was significant,
F(1, 34) ¼ 18.85, p < .001, partial 2 ¼ .36. Adults spent a longer
time comparing the areas of the sectors in the incongruent condi-
tions (M ¼ 677.49, SE ¼ 29.24) than in the congruent conditions
(M ¼ 611.56, SE ¼21.17). The main effect of proportion and the
interaction between these two factors were not significant, ps > .05.
For children, the congruity effect was not significant, F(1, 57) ¼
0.00, p ¼ .99, partial 2 ¼ .00. However, the main effect of pro-
portion, F(1.61, 91.60) ¼ 3.77, p ¼ .03, partial 2 ¼ .06, and the
interaction between these two factors, F(1.91, 108.86) ¼ 5.61,
p ¼ .005, partial 2 ¼ .09, reached significant level. Further analy-
sis showed that the congruity effects of children were different
among the three proportion conditions. In the within-half pairs, the
congruity effect was significant, t(57) ¼ 2.53, p ¼ .01, d ¼ 0.33.
Children compared more rapidly in the congruent pairs (M ¼
1053.98, SE ¼ 37.57) than in the incongruent pairs (M ¼
1114.12, SE ¼ 35.83). In including-half pairs, the congruity
effect did not reach significant level, t(57) ¼ 0.65, p ¼ .52,
d ¼ 0.08. In cross-half pairs, however, a contra-congruity effect
was found, t(57) ¼ 2.36, p ¼ .02, d ¼ 0.31. Children compared
more rapidly in the incongruent pairs (M ¼ 1053.67, SE ¼ 42.69)
than in the congruent pairs (M ¼ 1138.18, SE ¼ 44.07).
Discussion
In sum, the current study examined to what extent the representa-
tion of proportion is activated automatically and whether this auto-
matic representation appears early in development. Results showed
International Journal of Behavioral Development 39(2)
that adults made more mistakes and spent a longer time making
judgments in the incongruent conditions than in congruent condi-
tions. Children’s accuracy showed the exactly same pattern,
although their RT data were not clear.
What is worth noticing is that there was an evident speed-
accuracy trade-off in children’s cross-half condition (see Table
2), where a contra-congruity effect was found. This indicates that
the RT data of children should be interpreted with great caution.
Speed–accuracy trade-off was occasionally found in children’s
Stroop-like tasks (Gerstadt et al., 1994; Simpson & Riggs, 2005).
In these situations, researchers believed that the simultaneity of low
accuracy and short latency was resulted from young children’s giv-
ing up (Gerstadt et al., 1994). Therefore, reaction time may not be
sufficiently sensitive for young children (Simpson & Riggs, 2005).
Additionally, the RTs of correct responses were used for analysis in
the present study. However, children’s error rates were rather high
in the incongruent cross-half comparisons (see Table 2), making
many defaults in the RT data in this condition. So the RT data
involved in the analyses were somewhat partial. Therefore, our dis-
cussion no longer depends on reaction time here.
In the basis of the accuracy and RT data of adults and the accu-
racy of children, the present study provided strong evidence that the
representation of proportions was automatically accessed in this
area comparison task while it was irrelevant and disturbing to the
main task. This automatic activation of proportion representation
appears early in children’s development, at least by the age of
5 years.
Unlike previous research exploring the content of children’s
representation of proportion, the present study examined the auto-
matic, unintentional process of representation. The similar para-
digm was used frequently in research exploring the development
of automatic processing of numerical information and it has pro-
vided profound understanding of the acquisition of numerical rep-
resentation (e.g. Girelli et al., 2000; Rubinsten, Henik, Berger, &
Shahar-Shalev, 2002; Zhou et al., 2007). However, there were no
previous studies that have directly demonstrated the automatic and
unintentional representation of proportion when it acted as an irre-
levant dimension to the main task. For the first time, we tested this
automatic representation in children directly and found some results
consistent with or beyond what has been reported in previous stud-
ies using explicit tasks.
Recent studies provided rather strong evidence that children
showed competence on tasks involving proportional reasoning
about continuous amounts as early as the preschool years. The
youngest age for accomplishment found in these studies depended
on the problems and contexts used. In general, it was found that
children were able to reason about proportion in matching, analogy,
or comparison tasks by age 6 years (Boyer et al., 2008; Jeong et al.,
2007; Spinillo & Bryant, 1991) while some studies even found 3- or
4-year-olds also showed success when the tasks were involving
only simple proportions or undemanding contexts (Duffy et al.,
2005; Singer-Freeman & Goswami, 2001; Sophian, 2000). To
whatever degree the explicitness were in these studies, representing
proportion was highly relevant and goal-directed. In the present
study, from another point of view, we found children accessed
proportional representation automatically. The performance of
5–6-year-olds was highly evident and convictive, providing more
in-depth evidence that representing proportion is clearly an early
achievement, independent of formal learning or school instruction.
At the same time, the present study provides a significative attempt
to explore children’s proportional reasoning using an implicit task.
Yang et al.
With respect to problems about proportion being notoriously diffi-
cult to be explained or instructed in explicit language for young
children, the new paradigm used in the present study might be help-
ful to advance our understanding about children’s knowledge of
proportion in the future.
Automaticity is considered to be a process that is unintentional,
uncontrolled/uncontrollable, goal independent, autonomous, purely
stimulus-driven, unconscious, efficient, and fast (see Moors & De
Houwer, 2006, for a review). Most theorists focus on the learned
automatic processes and emphasize the learning mechanism to
account for automatizaion which leads to the automatic processing
(Anderson, 1992; Logan, 1988). At the same time, they also admit
the innate automatic processes for which humans are genetically
prepared (Hasher & Zacks, 1979). These processes are proposed
to be widely shared and minimally influenced by differences in
age, culture, education, early experience, and intelligence. The fun-
damental aspects of the flow of information, namely, spatial, tem-
poral, and frequency information, are assumed to be automatically
encoded in these processes. Our results in this study do not provide
direct evidence about the origin of the automatic representation of
proportion. However, its early appearance in development is
remarkable. The congruity effect found in the present study was
rather strong and stable in 5–6-year-old children and the inclination
showed by these children was very similar as that of adults. These
results all fail to correspond with a gradually-acquired process.
Therefore, despite of the lack of direct evidence, basing on its early
emergence, strong effect and stabilization with age, and in consid-
eration of the lack of formal instruction or even explicit label about
proportion in preschool ages, we can hardly believe the automatic
representation of proportion is a process acquired by learning or
practice. This finding is consistent with the argument that children
have an intuitive understanding of proportion, at least in the tasks
only involving continuous amounts (Spinillo & Bryant, 1999). To
take this approach further, future research could investigate the
potential variation of the automatic representation of proportion
depended on culture, education and intelligence.
Another interesting finding in this study is the modulation of
the proportions the two sectors presented to the congruity effects.
In the present design, the levels that were divided based on ‘‘half’’
boundary were confounded with the distance between the two pro-
portions. However, we believe the modulation of proportions to
congruity effects is mainly an effect based on the ‘‘half’’ boundary
effect than on the distance effect because the degrees of modula-
tion were inconsistent with the distance between the two propor-
tions. The three levels of the variable of the two proportions were:
1) within-half pairs with a distance of 1/12 (1/4 vs 1/3, 2/3 vs 3/4);
2) including-half pairs with distance of 3/12 (1/4 vs 1/2, 3/4 vs
1/2); and 3) cross-half pairs with distance of 5/12 (1/3 vs 3/4, 1/
4 vs 2/3). The distance increased with a constant (2/12). Inconsis-
tent with this constant increase, the variance of congruity effect
was not linear. In adults, the congruity effect was bigger in the
cross-half proportion pairs than in the within-half and including-
half pairs, showing that the automatic comparisons of cross-half
proportion pairs were more easily accessed by adults. In chil-
dren, the congruity effect was smaller in the within-half pairs
than in the other pairs, indicating that children’s automatic com-
parisons of cross-half proportions and including-half proportions
were equally strong and both were easier to be accessed than
that of within-half proportion pairs. These nonlinear effects
found in this study made us more confident about the ‘‘half’’
boundary effect.
103
The results about children were quite consistent with the conclu-
sion made in a previous study that ‘‘half’’ played a crucial role in
children’s proportional judgments (Spinillo & Bryant, 1991). That
study showed that 6–7-year old children discriminated proportions
that cross ‘‘half’’ or involving half more easily than those that do
not cross the ‘‘half’’. According to Spinillo and Bryant (1991),
‘‘half’’ might be as a category boundary in children’s early propor-
tional reasoning. The present study, taking a further step, indicated
that this propensity was also true in automatic process and in com-
parison. Children were rather sensitive to the ‘‘half’’ boundary and
automatically accessed the comparison of two proportions that
crossed this boundary more readily. At the same time, they were
also sensitive to the ‘‘half’’ proportion itself and compared it to
other proportions more easily. Adults showed similar tendency with
children and showed analogous sensitivity to the ‘‘half’’ boundary.
The only difference is that adults did not treat the ‘‘half’’ proportion
itself distinctively, and thus the including-half pairs showed no
advantage for them. We think these results indicated the potential
change of the role of ‘‘half’’ in development. The age of about
5 to 7 years (according to the study of Spinillo and Bryant, 1991,
and our study) might be a starting point for children to get the half
boundary, and children give it special attention in this age. And for
adults, the boundary has already been adeptly set up and used in
various tasks, but there is no need to treat the boundary itself
distinctively.
In summary, our findings in this study demonstrate that children
have an automatic representation of proportion long before they
have formal school instruction about proportion or can label them
verbally. The automatic processing of proportion in children was
as strong as that of adults. These results provide in-depth evidence
about the mechanisms of children’s representation of proportion,
supporting the argument that this representation is based on an
intuitive and perceptual coding at least in continuous conditions.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in
the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Note
1. See the 1/4 vs. 3/4 pairs in Table 1 for an example. In the con-
gruent pair, the radius of the bigger sector was 47.87 mm and
that of the smaller sector was 33.85 mm. In the incongruent pair,
the radius of the bigger sector was 55.27 mm and that of the
smaller sector was 29.31. So the sector that had bigger area
always had longer radius, leading to the results that the differ-
ence of radius would facilitate the area comparison rather than
interfere with it if the radiuses were also automatically activated.
Additionally, the difference of radiuses was bigger in the incon-
gruent pairs than in the congruent pairs, so the facilitation in
incongruent pairs would always be greater. Therefore, if the
radiuses were automatically represented, they would only coun-
teract the congruity effect rather than exaggerate it.
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