Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Analogies to familiar numbers can help children project the magnitudes of numbers they rarely (if ever) encounter. Un-fortunately, children may require source retrieval cues to revive their inert knowledge. Here we investigated effects ofthese cues in the context of estimating the location of fractions on number lines. During training, thirty-nine 10-year-oldslearned to map the location of integers and fractions on equivalent number lines (e.g., 3:8::3/8:1), and at post-test weregiven the same fraction number-line problems either with (Cue group) or without (No Cue group) a cue to remember thelocation of integers. Accuracy of estimates increased from pretest to training for both groups. However, children who re-ceived source retrieval cues during post-test improved their accuracy more than children in the No Cue group. Our resultsprovide further evidence thateven when sources and targets have been successfully mappedfailures of source retrieval canprevent analogical inference.