Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying multiplication and subtraction performance in adults and skill development in...

Many studies investigating the brain correlates of arithmetic processing have either focused on a single operation (e.g., addition), or have averaged brain activation across different operations, a practice that washes away operation-specific effects. This review focuses on the processing of two fundamental operations (i.e., multiplication and subtraction), summarizes recent neuroimaging evidence on the role of the verbal and quantity mechanisms that underlie adults' performance on these operations, and covers the role of these mechanisms in explaining longitudinal gains in typically developing children. Overall, evidence supports that recruitment of verbal mechanisms is important for explaining single-digit multiplication performance and gains, whereas recruitment of quantity mechanisms is crucial for explaining performance and gains in single-digit subtraction.