Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Salamanca.
Center for Research in Child Development, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University.
Cogn Sci. 2019 Jan;43(1). doi: 10.1111/cogs.12711.
A growing body of research has shown that symbolic number processing relates to individual differences in mathematics. However, it remains unclear which mechanisms of symbolic number processing are crucial-accessing underlying magnitude representation of symbols (i.e., symbol-magnitude associations), processing relative order of symbols (i.e., symbol-symbol associations), or processing of symbols per se. To address this question, in this study adult participants performed a dots-number word matching task-thought to be a measure of symbol-magnitude associations (numerical magnitude processing)-a numeral-ordering task that focuses on symbol-symbol associations (numerical order processing), and a digit-number word matching task targeting symbolic processing per se. Results showed that both numerical magnitude and order processing were uniquely related to arithmetic achievement, beyond the effects of domain-general factors (intellectual ability, working memory, inhibitory control, and non-numerical ordering). Importantly, results were different when a general measure of mathematics achievement was considered. Those mechanisms of symbolic number processing did not contribute to math achievement. Furthermore, a path analysis revealed that numerical magnitude and order processing might draw on a common mechanism. Each process explained a portion of the relation of the other with arithmetic (but not with a general measure of math achievement). These findings are consistent with the notion that adults' arithmetic skills build upon symbol-magnitude associations, and they highlight the effects that different math measures have in the study of numerical cognition.
越来越多的研究表明，符号数字处理与数学个体差异有关。然而，目前尚不清楚符号数字处理的哪些机制是至关重要的——是访问符号的底层数量表示（即符号-数量关联）、处理符号的相对顺序（即符号-符号关联），还是处理符号本身。为了解决这个问题，在这项研究中，成年参与者执行了一个点-数字单词匹配任务——被认为是衡量符号-数量关联的一种方法（数量加工）、一个专注于符号-符号关联的数字排序任务（数字顺序加工），以及一个针对符号本身的数字-数字单词匹配任务。结果表明，数量和顺序加工都与算术成绩有关，这超出了领域一般性因素（智力、工作记忆、抑制控制和非数量排序）的影响。重要的是，当考虑到一般的数学成绩衡量标准时，结果是不同的。这些符号数字处理机制对数学成绩没有贡献。此外，路径分析表明，数量和顺序加工可能依赖于共同的机制。每个过程都解释了另一个过程与算术成绩之间关系的一部分（但与一般的数学成绩衡量标准无关）。这些发现与成年人的算术技能建立在符号-数量关联的概念上是一致的，并且它们强调了不同的数学测量方法在数量认知研究中的影响。
