The Acquisition Process of Time Concept in 4~7 Years Old Children

Abstract

Abstract: Four to seven years old is the key stage for children to understand the concept of time. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the ways in which 4- to 7-year-old children acquire time concepts. In Experiments 1 and 2, time words comparison paradigm was used and results showed that children had acquired the rank ordering of the duration words at the age of 4. However, when time words combined with numbers, 4- to 5-year-old children could not correctly judge which words represented longer period of time compared with children aged 6-7 years. In Experiment 3, we asked children to estimate durations using a spatial representation of time. It was found that children aged 6-7 mapped those estimates similarly to adults, indicating that they do understand their relative durations. Furthermore, the 6- and 7-year-old children with knowledge of formal definitions of duration words did better in mapping duration words. The results suggest that children acquire the rank meaning of the time words through its definition before understanding its precise meaning.

Key words: children, concept of time, acquisition process, rank meaning, precise meaning

摘要： 4～7岁是儿童理解时间概念的关键阶段，本研究通过三个实验探究儿童时间概念的获得方式。实验1和实验2采用时间词对比的方式发现儿童在4岁已经获得时间概念的等级含义；4～5岁儿童在数字与时间词等级不一致的对比类型条件下，时间概念判断的正确率显著低于“一样”和“一致”两种对比形式；6～7岁儿童三种对比类型的正确率没有显著差异。实验3采用空间映射的方式发现6～7岁儿童能够与成人一样区分时间概念之间的比率，时间概念定义学习有助于儿童精确理解时间概念。结果表明儿童先理解时间概念的等级含义，再通过学习定义理解时间概念的数量含义。

关键词: 儿童, 时间概念, 获得方式, 等级含义, 数量含义

CLC Number:

B842

LIU Pengfei, CUI Jiaxin, REN Weicong, ZHANG Zhijie. The Acquisition Process of Time Concept in 4~7 Years Old Children[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2021, 19(4): 454-459.

刘鹏飞, 崔佳歆, 任维聪, 张志杰. 4～7岁儿童时间概念的获得方式[J]. 心理与行为研究, 2021, 19(4): 454-459.

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