The knowledge of the preceding number reveals a mature understanding of the number sequence

There is an ongoing debate concerning how numbers acquire numerical meaning. On the one hand, it has been argued that symbols acquire meaning via a mapping to external numerosities as represented by the approximate number system (ANS). On the other hand, it has been proposed that the initial mapping of small numerosities to the corresponding number words and the knowledge of the properties of counting list, especially the order relation between symbols, lead to the understanding of the exact numerical magnitude associated with numerical symbols. In the present study, we directly compared these two hypotheses in a group of preschool children who could proficiently count (most of the children were cardinal principle knowers). We used a numerosity estimation task to assess whether children have created a mapping between the ANS and the counting list (i.e., ANS-to-word mapping). Children also completed a direction task to assess their knowledge of the directional property of the counting l...