It is commonly accepted that repeatedly using mental procedures results in a transition to memory retrieval, but the determinant of this process is still unclear. In a 3-week experiment, we compared two different learning situations involving basic additions, one based on counting and the other based on arithmetic fact memorization. Two groups of…

This research pursued a fine-grained analysis of the acquisition of a procedural skill. In two experiments (n = 29 and n = 27), adults practiced 12 alphabet arithmetic problems (e.g., C + 3 = C D E F) in two sessions with 20 practice blocks in each. If learning reflected speed up of a counting algorithm, response time (RT) speed up should be…

In Asia, some children are taught a calculation technique known as the 'mental abacus'. Previous research indicated that mental abacus experts can perform extraordinary feats of mental arithmetic, but it disagrees as to whether the technique improves working memory. The present study extended and clarified these findings by contrasting performance…

People's everyday lives offer plenty of situations where complex processing of information takes place, in which information needs to transfer across modalities to achieve a behavioral goal. The study examined the differential effects on object detection by a visual, verbal, or auditory cue held in working memory (WM), and the role of concurrent…

Students start to memorize arithmetic facts from early elementary school mathematics activities. Their fluency or lack of fluency with these facts could affect their efforts as they carry out mental calculations as adults. This study investigated participants' levels of brain activation and possible reasons for these levels as they solved…

Higher working memory capacity (WMC) improves performance on a range of cognitive and academic tasks. However, a greater ability to control attention sometimes leads individuals with higher WMC to persist in using complex, attention-demanding approaches that are suboptimal for a given task. We examined whether higher WMC would hinder insight…

Common fractions have been found to be processed intentionally but not automatically, which led to the conclusion that they are not represented holistically in long-term memory. However, decimals are more similar to natural numbers in their form and thus might be better candidates to be holistically represented by educated adults. To test this…

Determining adults' and children's strategies in mental arithmetic constitutes a central issue in the domain of numerical cognition. However, despite the considerable amount of research on this topic, the conclusions in the literature are not always coherent. Therefore, there is a need to carry on the investigation, and this is the reason why we…

We investigated how the updating function supports the integration process in solving arithmetic word problems. In Experiment 1, we measured reading time, that is, translation and integration times, when undergraduate and graduate students (n = 78) were asked to solve 2 types of problems: those containing only necessary information and those…

We examined the effectiveness of (a) a working memory (WM) training program and (b) a combination program involving both WM training and direct instruction for students with geometry difficulties (GD). Four students with GD participated. A multiple-baseline design across participants was employed. During the Phase 1, students received six sessions…

Individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) increase the ability and tendency to devote greater attentional control to a task--improving performance on a wide range of skills. In addition, recent research on enclothed cognition demonstrates that the situational influence of wearing a white lab coat increases controlled attention, due…

Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) is a widely studied phenomenon of human memory, but RIF of arithmetic facts remains relatively unexplored. In 2 experiments, we investigated RIF of simple addition facts (2 + 3 = 5) from practice of their multiplication counterparts (2 x 3 = 6). In both experiments, robust RIF expressed in response times occurred…

Gestalt psychologists proposed two distinct learning mechanisms. Associative learning occurs gradually through the repeated co-occurrence of external stimuli or memories. Insight learning occurs suddenly when people discover new relationships within their prior knowledge as a result of reasoning or problem solving processes that re-organize or…

Educated adults solve simple addition problems primarily by direct memory retrieval, as opposed to by counting or other procedural strategies, but they report using retrieval substantially less often with problems in written-word format (four = eight) compared with digit format (4 = 8). It was hypothesized that retrieval efficiency is relatively…

The goal of this study was to develop and evaluate a structural model of the relations among cognitive abilities and arithmetic skills and college students' algebra achievement. The model of algebra achievement was compared to a model of performance on the Scholastic Assessment in Mathematics (SAT-M) to determine whether the pattern of relations…