Arithmetic Training Does Not Improve Approximate Number System Acuity
The approximate number system (ANS) is thought to support non-symbolic representations of numerical magnitudes in humans. Recently much debate has focused on the causal direction for an observed relation between ANS acuity and arithmetic fluency. Here we investigate if arithmetic training can improv...
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| Format: | Online |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2016
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5079063/ |
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pubmed-50790632016-11-08 Arithmetic Training Does Not Improve Approximate Number System Acuity Lindskog, Marcus Winman, Anders Poom, Leo Psychology The approximate number system (ANS) is thought to support non-symbolic representations of numerical magnitudes in humans. Recently much debate has focused on the causal direction for an observed relation between ANS acuity and arithmetic fluency. Here we investigate if arithmetic training can improve ANS acuity. We show with an experimental training study consisting of six 45-min training sessions that although feedback during arithmetic training improves arithmetic performance substantially, it does not influence ANS acuity. Hence, we find no support for a causal link where symbolic arithmetic training influences ANS acuity. Further, although short-term number memory is likely involved in arithmetic tasks we did not find that short-term memory capacity for numbers, measured by a digit-span test, was effected by arithmetic training. This suggests that the improvement in arithmetic fluency may have occurred independent of short-term memory efficiency, but rather due to long-term memory processes and/or mental calculation strategy development. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-10-25 /pmc/articles/PMC5079063/ /pubmed/27826270 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01634 Text en Copyright © 2016 Lindskog, Winman and Poom. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Lindskog, Marcus Winman, Anders Poom, Leo |
| spellingShingle |
Lindskog, Marcus Winman, Anders Poom, Leo Arithmetic Training Does Not Improve Approximate Number System Acuity |
| author_facet |
Lindskog, Marcus Winman, Anders Poom, Leo |
| author_sort |
Lindskog, Marcus |
| title |
Arithmetic Training Does Not Improve Approximate Number System Acuity |
| title_short |
Arithmetic Training Does Not Improve Approximate Number System Acuity |
| title_full |
Arithmetic Training Does Not Improve Approximate Number System Acuity |
| title_fullStr |
Arithmetic Training Does Not Improve Approximate Number System Acuity |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Arithmetic Training Does Not Improve Approximate Number System Acuity |
| title_sort |
arithmetic training does not improve approximate number system acuity |
| description |
The approximate number system (ANS) is thought to support non-symbolic representations of numerical magnitudes in humans. Recently much debate has focused on the causal direction for an observed relation between ANS acuity and arithmetic fluency. Here we investigate if arithmetic training can improve ANS acuity. We show with an experimental training study consisting of six 45-min training sessions that although feedback during arithmetic training improves arithmetic performance substantially, it does not influence ANS acuity. Hence, we find no support for a causal link where symbolic arithmetic training influences ANS acuity. Further, although short-term number memory is likely involved in arithmetic tasks we did not find that short-term memory capacity for numbers, measured by a digit-span test, was effected by arithmetic training. This suggests that the improvement in arithmetic fluency may have occurred independent of short-term memory efficiency, but rather due to long-term memory processes and/or mental calculation strategy development. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. |
| publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
| publishDate |
2016 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5079063/ |
| _version_ |
1613697273956401152 |