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Simple arithmetic development in school age: The coactivation and selection of arithmetic facts
Patricia Megías1, Pedro Macizo2
1Departamento de Psicología Experimental, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|June 4, 2015
Summary
Children aged 10+ develop inhibitory control for math facts, demonstrated by slower responses to multiplication-related additions. This shows improved selection of arithmetic knowledge through schooling.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Educational Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Children's arithmetic fact retrieval undergoes significant development during elementary school years.
- Understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying this development is crucial for educational interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the development of inhibitory mechanisms in selecting arithmetic facts in children aged 8–13.
- To determine if children aged 10+ show evidence of inhibiting irrelevant multiplication knowledge during addition tasks.
Main Methods:
- Utilized an adapted negative priming paradigm (NP paradigm) with addition problems.
- Included incorrect additions where the result matched a multiplication of the operands (e.g., 2 + 4 = 8).
- Compared response times for critical trials versus control trials.
Main Results:
- Children aged 10–11 years and older showed increased response times for incorrect additions involving multiplication overlaps, indicating coactivation of multiplication facts.
- These older children were also slower on subsequent correct addition problems that reused the multiplication result, suggesting inhibitory control is engaged.
- Younger children (8–9 years) did not exhibit these patterns, indicating a developmental lag.
Conclusions:
- Formal education appears to foster the development of inhibitory mechanisms for efficient arithmetic fact selection.
- Children aged 10–11 years onward demonstrate an ability to inhibit irrelevant coactivated knowledge, a key component of mathematical reasoning.
Keywords:
Arithmetic verification taskAssociative confusion effectCoactivation of arithmetic facts in school ageDevelopment of simple arithmetic skillsInhibitory control in childrenInhibitory mechanism in arithmeticMore Related Videos
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