Symbolic number processing and mathematical achievement in adults

Resumen

The development of numerical abilities and math-related skills, both in children and adults, has become a heavily researched topic in the last years. Some of these studies have shown that the performance in symbolic number processing tasks relate to math achievement, although it is not still clear what mechanism is responsible of this relation. It could be either the automatic symbol processing, or the access to magnitude representation from the symbols. To answer this question, in the current study were used three different symbolic number processing tasks with adult participants: 1)number comparison, whose measure of “numerical distance effect” would reflect, indirectly, the access to magnitude representation 2) pure symbolic processing and 3) one task of direct access to magnitude (from symbols to magnitudes). As measures of arithmetic achievement two tests were used: arithmetic fluency and mental calculation. It was conducted a hierarchical regression analysis taking into account the intelligence, processing speed and verbal and spatial working memory. This analysis showed that the three measures of symbolic number processing contributed to the variance of arithmetic fluency even when the effects of non-mathematical abilities were controlled for. On the other hand, only the access to magnitude representation contributed to the variance on mental calculation. These results suggest that arithmetic achievement is built upon the abilities to automatically process symbols and to access to their magnitude, although this relationship is mediated by arithmetic achievement measures.