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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 2, 2025

Multimedia Battery for Assessment of Cognitive and Basic Skills in Mathematics BM-PROMA

Multimedia Battery for Assessment of Cognitive and Basic Skills in Mathematics BM-PROMA

Published on: August 28, 2021

Different Language Modalities Yet Similar Cognitive Processes in Arithmetic Fact Retrieval.

Ilaria Berteletti¹, Sarah E Kimbley¹, SaraBeth J Sullivan¹

¹Ph.D. in Educational Neuroscience Program, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC 20002, USA.

|February 25, 2022

Summary

Deaf American Sign Language (ASL) signers and hearing English speakers show similar brain activity when solving math problems. This suggests language modality does not affect core arithmetic processing in adults.

Keywords:

American Sign Language arithmetic facts deaf native signers event-related potentials language modality operation type effect problem size effect

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Psycholinguistics
Mathematics Cognition

Background:

Understanding how different language backgrounds influence cognitive processes is crucial for cognitive science.
Previous research has explored the neurocognitive basis of arithmetic, but less is known about the impact of signed language experience.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether experience with American Sign Language (ASL) affects the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying arithmetic problem-solving in adults.
To compare event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with operation type and problem size between Deaf ASL native signers and hearing English speakers.

Main Methods:

Employed event-related potentials (ERPs) during a delayed verification task involving single-digit subtraction and multiplication problems.
Manipulated problem size (small, large, extra-large for subtraction) to assess quantity-related processing.
Included Deaf ASL native signers and hearing English-speaking participants.

Main Results:

Both groups exhibited comparable behavioral performance and similar ERP modulations.
An early operation type effect (around 200 ms) indicated similar attentional differentiation for subtraction and multiplication.
A later posterior-occipital component (240-300 ms) showed similar problem size modulation for subtraction only, suggesting quantity-related processing.

Conclusions:

The findings provide the first evidence that arithmetic operation types recruit distinct cognitive processes in ASL native signers.
These neurocognitive processes for arithmetic are equivalent to those observed in English-speaking populations, irrespective of language modality.
Language modality does not appear to fundamentally alter the core neurocognitive architecture for solving basic arithmetic problems in adults.