TY  - JOUR
A1  - D'Ascenzo, Stefania
A1  - Lugli, Luisa
A1  - Nicoletti, Roberto
A1  - Fischer, Martin H.
T1  - Assessing orienting of attention to understand the time course of mental calculation
JF  - Cognitive processing : international quarterly of cognitive science
N2  - Number processing induces spatial attention shifts to the left or right side for small or large numbers, respectively. This spatial-numerical association (SNA) extends to mental calculation, such that subtractions and additions induce left or right biases, respectively. However, the time course of activating SNAs during mental calculation is unclear. Here, we addressed this issue by measuring visual position discrimination during auditory calculation. Thirty-four healthy adults listened in each trial to five successive elements of arithmetic facts (first operand, operator, second operand, equal and result) and verbally classified their correctness. After each element (except for the result), a fixation dot moved equally often to either the left or right side and participants pressed left or right buttons to discriminate its movement direction (four times per trial). First and second operand magnitude (small/large), operation (addition/subtraction), result correctness (right/wrong) and movement direction (left/right) were balanced across 128 trials. Manual reaction times of dot movement discriminations were considered in relation to previous arithmetic elements. We found no evidence of early attentional shifts after first operand and operator presentation. Discrimination performance was modulated consistent with SNAs after the second operand, suggesting that attentional shifts occur once there is access to all elements necessary to complete an arithmetic operation. Such late-occurring attention shifts may reflect a combination of multiple element-specific biases and confirm their functional role in mental calculation.
KW  - Attention
KW  - Mental arithmetic
KW  - Numerical cognition
KW  - Spatial-numerical
KW  - associations
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-020-00970-y
SN  - 1612-4782
SN  - 1612-4790
VL  - 21
IS  - 4
SP  - 493
EP  - 500
PB  - Springer
CY  - Heidelberg ; Berlin
ER  -