School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, No.1, University Road, Science Park, Changqing, Jinan, Shandong, China.
Cogn Process. 2023 May;24(2):245-252. doi: 10.1007/s10339-023-01125-5. Epub 2023 Jan 31.
Semantic alignment refers to the cognitive tendency that people always seek for the matching of semantic relations between mathematical cognition and objects in specific situations. In developing individuals, language ability and mathematical ability are in the development stage, and the development of semantic consistency is more helpful to reveal the relationship between the two. From the perspective of semantic alignment, this study aims to explore the age-related difference in the effects of semantic relationship on arithmetic operations. Sixty-two children and 62 adults were recruited to perform an arithmetical verification task. The results showed that: (1) Compared with children, adults had shorter response times and higher accuracy in mathematical operations. (2) Both adults and children showed longer response times in division condition than that in addition condition. (3) Children are more affected by semantic alignment than adults in addition. (4) For addition operation, participants performed better under semantic consistent condition than under semantic inconsistent condition, but the opposite result was found for division operation. It indicated that semantic consistently promoted the addition operation and semantic inconsistently promoted the division operation. This suggests that teachers should pay attention to integrating mathematical conceptual knowledge and language context in future educational practice.
语义对齐是指人们在认知过程中总是倾向于寻求数学认知与特定情境下物体之间的语义关系匹配。在个体发展过程中，语言能力和数学能力都处于发展阶段，语义一致性的发展更有助于揭示两者之间的关系。本研究从语义对齐的角度出发，旨在探讨语义关系对算术运算的影响随年龄的变化。研究招募了 62 名儿童和 62 名成年人，让他们完成一个算术验证任务。结果表明：（1）与儿童相比，成年人在数学运算中反应更快，准确率更高。（2）无论是儿童还是成年人，在除法条件下的反应时间都长于加法条件。（3）与成年人相比，儿童在加法条件下受语义对齐的影响更大。（4）对于加法运算，参与者在语义一致条件下的表现优于语义不一致条件下的表现，但对于除法运算则相反。这表明语义一致性促进了加法运算，而语义不一致促进了除法运算。这表明，教师在未来的教育实践中应注意将数学概念知识与语言语境相结合。
