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Language effects in addition: How you say it counts.
Angels Colomé1, Itziar Laka, Núria Sebastián-Gallés
1Basic Psychology Department and Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. angels.colome@ub.edu
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|September 11, 2009
Summary
Language structure impacts calculation. The Basque language
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Linguistics
- Psychology
Background:
- Numerical cognition is influenced by language structure.
- The Basque language utilizes a non-base-10 system for number words.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how linguistic number systems affect mathematical calculation.
- To compare calculation performance between speakers of base-10 and Basque languages.
Main Methods:
- Three experiments were conducted comparing two language groups.
- Participants solved verbal and typed additions and performed numerical comparisons.
- Performance was measured by response time and accuracy.
Main Results:
- Basque speakers showed faster addition solving for specific number combinations (multiples of 20 + teens) compared to controls.
- This effect persisted even when answers were typed, not spoken.
- No language effect was observed in the numerical comparison task.
Conclusions:
- The structure of number words influences cognitive processes in calculation.
- Language impacts arithmetic processing even when not explicitly used for the task.
- Numerical cognition models need to account for linguistic influences.
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