TY - JOUR A1 - Hartmann, Matthias A1 - Laubrock, Jochen A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - The visual number world BT - a dynamic approach to study the mathematical mind JF - The quarterly journal of experimental psychology N2 - In the domain of language research, the simultaneous presentation of a visual scene and its auditory description (i.e., the visual world paradigm) has been used to reveal the timing of mental mechanisms. Here we apply this rationale to the domain of numerical cognition in order to explore the differences between fast and slow arithmetic performance, and to further study the role of spatial-numerical associations during mental arithmetic. We presented 30 healthy adults simultaneously with visual displays containing four numbers and with auditory addition and subtraction problems. Analysis of eye movements revealed that participants look spontaneously at the numbers they currently process (operands, solution). Faster performance was characterized by shorter latencies prior to fixating the relevant numbers and fewer revisits to the first operand while computing the solution. These signatures of superior task performance were more pronounced for addition and visual numbers arranged in ascending order, and for subtraction and numbers arranged in descending order (compared to the opposite pairings). Our results show that the visual number world-paradigm provides on-line access to the mind during mental arithmetic, is able to capture variability in arithmetic performance, and is sensitive to visual layout manipulations that are otherwise not reflected in response time measurements. KW - Eye movements KW - Mental arithmetic KW - Mental number line KW - Visual world paradigm Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2016.1240812 SN - 1747-0218 SN - 1747-0226 VL - 71 IS - 1 SP - 28 EP - 36 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lonnemann, Jan A1 - Müller, Christian A1 - Büttner, Gerhard A1 - Hasselhorn, Marcus T1 - The influence of visual-spatial skills on the association between processing of nonsymbolic numerical magnitude and number word sequence skills JF - Journal of experimental child psychology N2 - Nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing skills are assumed to be fundamental to mathematical learning. Recent findings suggest that visual–spatial skills account for associations between children’s performance in visually presented nonsymbolic numerical magnitude comparison tasks and their performance in visually presented arithmetic tasks. The aim of the current study was to examine whether associations between children’s performance in visually presented tasks assessing nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing skills and their performance in tasks assessing early mathematical skills, which do not involve visual stimulation, may also be mediated by visual–spatial skills. This line of reasoning is based on the assumption that children make use of mental visualization processes when working on tasks assessing early mathematical skills, such as knowledge of the sequence of number words, even when these tasks do not involve visual stimulation. We assessed 4- to 6-year-old children’s performance in a nonsymbolic numerical magnitude comparison task, in tasks concerning knowledge of the sequence of number words, and in a developmental test to assess visual–spatial skills. Children’s nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing skills were found to be associated with their number word sequence skills. This association was fully mediated by interindividual differences in visual–spatial skills. The effect size of this mediation effect was small. We assume that the ability to construct mental visualizations constitutes the key factor underlying this mediation effect. KW - Approximate number system KW - Numerical magnitude processing KW - Number word sequence skills KW - Visual-spatial skills KW - Mental visualization KW - Mental number line Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.09.018 SN - 0022-0965 SN - 1096-0457 VL - 178 SP - 184 EP - 197 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Göbel, Silke M. A1 - McCrink, Koleen A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Shaki, Samuel T1 - Observation of directional storybook reading influences young children’s counting direction JF - Journal of experimental child psychology N2 - Even before formal schooling, children map numbers onto space in a directional manner. The origin of this preliterate spatial–numerical association is still debated. We investigated the role of enculturation for shaping the directionality of the association between numbers and space, focusing on counting behavior in 3- to 5-year-old preliterate children. Two studies provide evidence that, after observing reading from storybooks (left-to-right or right-to-left reading) children change their counting direction in line with the direction of observed reading. Just observing visuospatial directional movements had no such effect on counting direction. Complementarily, we document that book illustrations, prevalent in children’s cultures, exhibit directionality that conforms to the direction of a culture’s written language. We propose that shared book reading activates spatiotemporal representations of order in young children, which in turn affect their spatial representation of numbers. KW - Counting direction KW - Cross-cultural KW - Mental number line KW - Reading KW - Spatial-numerical association KW - Preschool children Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.08.001 SN - 0022-0965 SN - 1096-0457 VL - 166 SP - 49 EP - 66 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER -