Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Department of Psychology and Department of Education, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Scand J Psychol. 2022 Dec;63(6):601-608. doi: 10.1111/sjop.12852. Epub 2022 Jun 26.
A negative relationship between mathematics anxiety (MA) and mathematics performance is well documented. One suggested explanation for this relationship is that MA interferes with the cognitive processes needed when solving mathematics problems. A demand for using more cognitive effort (e.g., when performing harder mathematics problems), can be traced as an increase in pupil dilation during the performance. However, we lack knowledge of how MA affects this relationship between the problem difficulty and cognitive effort. This study investigated, for the first time, if MA moderates the effect of arithmetic (i.e., multiplication) problem difficulty on cognitive effort. Thirty-four university students from Norway completed multiplication tasks, including three difficulty levels of problems, while their cognitive effort was also measured by means of pupil dilation using an eye tracker. Further, the participants reported their MA using a questionnaire, and arithmetic competence, general intelligence, and working memory were measured with paper-pencil tasks. A linear mixed model analysis showed that the difficulty level of the multiplication problems affected the cognitive effort so that the pupil dilated more with harder multiplication problems. However, we did not find a moderating effect of MA on cognitive effort, when controlling for arithmetic competence, general intelligence, and working memory. This suggests that MA does not contribute to cognitive effort when solving multiplication problems.
数学焦虑（MA）与数学表现之间呈负相关，这一现象已得到充分证实。对于这种关系，有一种解释认为，MA 会干扰解决数学问题所需的认知过程。当需要更多认知努力（例如，解决更难的数学问题时）时，可以通过瞳孔扩张来追踪这种需求的增加。然而，我们对于 MA 如何影响问题难度和认知努力之间的这种关系知之甚少。本研究首次探讨了 MA 是否会调节算术（即乘法）问题难度对认知努力的影响。来自挪威的 34 名大学生完成了乘法任务，其中包括三个难度级别的问题，同时使用眼动仪测量了他们的认知努力程度，即瞳孔扩张。此外，参与者使用问卷报告了他们的 MA，并且使用纸笔任务测量了他们的算术能力、一般智力和工作记忆。线性混合模型分析表明，乘法问题的难度级别会影响认知努力，即瞳孔随着更难的乘法问题而扩张得更大。然而，当控制了算术能力、一般智力和工作记忆后，我们没有发现 MA 对认知努力有调节作用。这表明，在解决乘法问题时，MA 不会对认知努力产生贡献。
