ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on a series of exploratory studies, conducted among the Kpelle tribe of Liberia, which seeks to combine experimental-psychological and anthropological techniques to provide information on a specific area of cognitive behaviour, namely, quantitative and logical thinking. In exploring the causes of these difficulties, various solutions were suggested, among them the development of new, specially written textbooks. One of the present authors, who participated in writing these textbooks, was also interested in studying mathematics indigenous to the tribal people for whom the books were to be written. The English and Kpelle languages have what appear to be very different ways of expressing logical relations. Several of the patterns used in the pattern condition, particularly for the larger numbers of dots were constructed in such a way that the dot patterns were arranged in two symmetrical rows. The overriding difficulty of cross-cultural research is the problem of knowing whether an experimental comparison is in fact a relevant comparison.