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"Approximate number system" training: A perceptual learning approach.

Aaron Cochrane1, Lucy Cui2, Edward M Hubbard3

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1202 W. Johnson St., Madison, WI, 53706, USA. akcochrane@wisc.edu.

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|December 15, 2018
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Long-term training significantly improved the approximate number system (ANS), showing continued gains even after thousands of trials. However, this enhanced number sense did not translate to improvements in higher-level math skills, suggesting ANS training alone is insufficient.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Educational psychology

Background:

  • Human quantity perception relies on a non-symbolic number sense (ANS).
  • ANS is considered foundational for symbolic number understanding in education.
  • Investigating ANS trainability may offer insights into improving mathematical abilities.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the effects of long-term (8,000+ trials) perceptual learning on the approximate number system (ANS).
  • To examine the generalization of ANS training to untrained visual locations and various cognitive tasks.
  • To determine if long-duration ANS training impacts higher-level mathematical performance.

Main Methods:

  • Employed a perceptual learning approach with extensive training (8,000+ trials) on an ANS task.
Keywords:
Approximate number systemArithmeticNumber sensePerceptual learning

Related Experiment Videos

  • Assessed generalization of training effects to untrained visual field locations.
  • Evaluated performance on enumeration, ratio comparison, multi-object tracking, and arithmetic tasks post-training.

    • Main Results:

    • Performance on the ANS task continued to improve throughout the long-term training, unlike short-term studies.
    • ANS training demonstrated generalization to untrained visual locations.
    • No significant generalization was observed for enumeration, ratio comparison, multi-object tracking, or arithmetic tasks.

    Conclusions:

    • Long-duration psychophysical training can effectively enhance the approximate number system (ANS).
    • ANS training shows generalization to untrained visual areas.
    • Enhancing ANS through training alone does not appear sufficient to improve complex mathematical skills.