Journal
COGNITION
Volume 146, Issue -, Pages 229-239Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.10.002
Keywords
Arithmetic; Procedure; Retrieval; Attention; Mental number line; Arithmetic sign
Categories
Funding
- European Union [PCIG12-GA-2012-333602]
- French Ministry of Higher Education and Research
Ask authors/readers for more resources
It has been recently proposed that adults might solve single-digit addition and subtraction problems by rapidly moving through an ordered representation of numbers. In the present study, we tested whether these movements manifest themselves by on-line shifts of attention during arithmetic problem-solving. In two experiments, adult participants were presented with single-digit addition, subtraction and multiplication problems. Operands and operator were presented sequentially on the screen. Although both the first operand and the operator were presented at the center of the screen, the second operand was presented either to the left or to the right side of space. We found that addition problems were solved faster when the second operand appeared to the right than to the left side (Experiments 1 & 2). In contrast, subtraction problems were solved faster when the second operand appeared to the left than to the right side (Experiment 1). No operation-dependent spatial bias was observed in the same time window when the second operand was zero (Experiment 1), and no bias was observed when the operation was a multiplication (Experiment 2). Therefore, our results demonstrate that solving single-digit addition and subtraction, but not multiplication, is associated with horizontal shifts of attention. Our findings support the idea that mental movements to the left or right of a sequential representation of numbers are elicited during single-digit arithmetic. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available