Section of Educational Neuroscience, Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Austria.
University College of Teacher Education Styria, Austria.
Neuropsychologia. 2020 Apr;141:107405. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107405. Epub 2020 Feb 19.
Behavioural and neuroimaging studies have recently demonstrated that symbolic numerical order processing (i.e., deciding whether numbers are in an increasing/decreasing sequence or not) and symbolic numerical magnitude processing (e.g., deciding which of two numerals is larger) engage different cognitive mechanisms and brain regions. Because of this dissociation, growing interest has emerged to better understand the neurocognitive mechanisms of symbolic numerical order processing and their relationship to individual differences in arithmetic performance. In the present functional imaging work, we further investigated this link in a group of thirty children (7.2-10.25 years) from elementary school, who completed a symbolic numerical order verification (are the numbers going up? e.g., 1-2-3) and a symbolic numerical magnitude comparison task (which is the larger number? e.g., 5-7) inside the scanner, as well as an arithmetic fluency test outside the scanner. Behavioural results demonstrated the unique role of numerical order to predict children's arithmetic skills and confirmed its mediating power to explain the association between numerical magnitude and arithmetic performance. Imaging results showed a significant association between numerical order and arithmetic in the intersection of the right inferior frontal gyrus and insula, as well as the posterior middle temporal gyrus. An age-dependent change in brain activity was found in the left intraparietal sulcus. These findings solidify the developmental importance of symbolic numerical order processing in children and provide new evidence that the semantic control network mediates the relationship with arithmetic performance.
行为和神经影像学研究最近表明，符号数字顺序处理（即判断数字是递增/递减序列）和符号数字大小处理（例如，判断两个数字中哪一个更大）涉及不同的认知机制和大脑区域。由于这种分离，人们越来越感兴趣于更好地理解符号数字顺序处理的神经认知机制及其与算术表现个体差异的关系。在本功能成像研究中，我们在一组 30 名小学生（7.2-10.25 岁）中进一步研究了这种联系，他们在扫描仪内完成了符号数字顺序验证（数字在上升吗？例如，1-2-3）和符号数字大小比较任务（哪个数字更大？例如，5-7），以及在扫描仪外进行的算术流畅性测试。行为结果表明，数字顺序对预测儿童的算术技能具有独特作用，并证实了其中介作用，可解释数字大小与算术表现之间的关联。成像结果显示，在右侧额下回和脑岛以及后颞中回的交点处，数字顺序和算术之间存在显著关联。在左顶内沟中发现了与年龄相关的脑活动变化。这些发现巩固了符号数字顺序处理在儿童发展中的重要性，并提供了新的证据表明，语义控制网络介导了与算术表现的关系。
