Visual form matching supports arithmetic across visual and auditory modalities

Arithmetic computation is ubiquitous in daily life and occurs in both visual and auditory modalities. Visual form matching, as a key visual perceptual ability, serves as an important cognitive basis for arithmetic ability, but its role in auditory arithmetic tasks remains unclear. The primary aim of this study was to examine whether the association between visual form matching and arithmetic processing is influenced by the presentation modality. A sample of 241 undergraduates from China (109 males, 132 females, M age = 21.49, SD = 2.37) participated in the study. Participants completed seven tasks, including arithmetic tasks presented visually and auditorily, a visual figure matching task, an auditory tone matching task, and additional cognitive tasks assessing mental rotation, choice reaction time, and nonverbal matrix reasoning. Results indicated that visual form matching was significantly associated with arithmetic performance in both visual and auditory presentation formats. These relationships remained significant after controlling for age, gender, and general cognitive factors. In contrast, auditory tone matching showed no significant association with arithmetic performance in either presentation modality. These findings indicate that the link between visual form matching and arithmetic performance is independent of the sensory modality of input, suggesting that bimodal arithmetic processing relies more on cross-modal shared symbolic representation processing or mental imagery mechanisms than on a modality-specific perceptual system.