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Switch cost in arithmetic operations and its relation to math anxiety.
1Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral Sciences, Ruppin Academic Center, Emek Hefer, Israel. yardeng@ruppin.ac.il.
Psychological Research
|March 2, 2025
Summary
Switching between math operations impacts performance, with complementary operations showing higher switch costs. Math anxiety also increases switch costs, aligning with attentional control theory.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Educational Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Math fluency is crucial for academic success and daily life.
- It involves efficient arithmetic problem-solving and task switching.
- Task switching, an executive function, is measured by switch cost.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate switch cost in math fluency.
- To examine how different arithmetic operations and math anxiety affect switch cost.
Main Methods:
- Participants completed a math fluency test using the Ben-Gurion University Math Fluency (BGU-MF) tool.
- Experiment 1 analyzed switch costs between different arithmetic operations.
- Experiment 2 compared switch costs in students with high versus low math anxiety.
Main Results:
- Switch costs varied across different arithmetic operations.
- Alternating between complementary operations incurred switch costs, unlike operations using similar cognitive mechanisms.
- High math anxiety was associated with lower math fluency performance and greater switch cost.
Conclusions:
- Switch cost in math fluency is influenced by operation type and cognitive mechanisms.
- Math anxiety negatively impacts executive functions, including task switching.
- Findings support the Attentional Control Theory regarding anxiety's effect on executive functions.
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