Department of Education and Pedagogy, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Research Unit Brain & Cognition, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2021 Nov;74(11):1935-1952. doi: 10.1177/17470218211016794. Epub 2021 May 24.
Understanding whether a sequence is presented in an order or not (i.e., ordinality) is a robust predictor of adults' arithmetic performance, but the mechanisms underlying this skill and its relationship with mathematics remain unclear. In this study, we examined (a) the cognitive strategies involved in ordinality inferred from behavioural effects observed in different types of sequences and (b) whether ordinality is also related to mathematical reasoning besides arithmetic. In Experiment 1, participants performed an arithmetic, a mathematical reasoning test, and an order task, which had balanced trials on the basis of order, direction, regularity, and distance. We observed standard distance effects (DEs) for ordered and non-ordered sequences, which suggest reliance on magnitude comparison strategies. This contradicts past studies that reported reversed distance effects (RDEs) for some types of sequences, which suggest reliance on retrieval strategies. Also, we found that ordinality predicted arithmetic but not mathematical reasoning when controlling for fluid intelligence. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether the aforementioned absence of RDEs was because of our trial list composition. Participants performed two order tasks: in both tasks, no RDE was found demonstrating the fragility of the RDE. In addition, results showed that the strategies used when processing ordinality were modulated by the trial list composition and presentation order of the tasks. Altogether, these findings reveal that ordinality is strongly related to arithmetic and that the strategies used when processing ordinality are highly dependent on the context in which the task is presented.
理解一个序列是否按顺序呈现（即有序性）是成人算术表现的有力预测指标，但这种技能的机制及其与数学的关系仍不清楚。在这项研究中，我们研究了（a）从不同类型序列中观察到的行为效应推断出的有序性所涉及的认知策略，以及（b）有序性除了算术之外是否与数学推理也有关系。在实验 1 中，参与者进行了算术、数学推理测试和顺序任务，这些任务根据顺序、方向、规则性和距离平衡了试验。我们观察到有序和无序序列的标准距离效应（DE），这表明依赖于大小比较策略。这与过去的研究报告的一些类型的序列的相反距离效应（RDE）相矛盾，这表明依赖于检索策略。此外，我们发现，在控制流体智力后，有序性可以预测算术，但不能预测数学推理。在实验 2 中，我们研究了上述不存在 RDE 是否是因为我们的试验列表组成。参与者进行了两个顺序任务：在两个任务中，都没有发现 RDE，这表明 RDE 的脆弱性。此外，结果表明，处理有序性时使用的策略受到任务的试验列表组成和呈现顺序的调节。总之，这些发现表明有序性与算术密切相关，并且处理有序性时使用的策略高度依赖于任务呈现的上下文。
