No abstract

The associations between number and space have been intensively investigated. Recent studies indicated that this association could extend to more complex tasks, such as mental arithmetic. However, the mechanism of arithmetic-space associations in mental arithmetic was still a topic of debate. Thus, in the current study, we adopted an eye-tracking technology to investigate whether spatial bias induced by mental arithmetic was related with spatial attention shifts on the mental number line or with semantic link between the operator and space. In Experiment 1, participants moved their eyes to the corresponding response area according to the cues after solving addition and subtraction problems. The results showed that the participants moved their eyes faster to the leftward space after solving subtraction problems and faster to the right after solving addition problems. However, there was no spatial bias observed when the second operand was zero in the same time window, which indicated that the emergence of spatial bias may be associated with spatial attention shifts on the mental number line. In Experiment 2, participants responded to the operator (operation plus and operation minus) with their eyes. The results showed that mere presentation of operator did not cause spatial bias. Therefore, the arithmetic-space associations might be related with the movement along the mental number line.

Two studies investigated the effects of cognitive and school environmental factors on adolescents' creative performance. The first study tested the effects of expected evaluation and cognitive style on creativity among 89 high school students. The second study tested the effects of evaluation type and cognitive style on creativity among 92 high school students. Study 1 found main effects of expected evaluation and cognitive style on creativity. The interaction between expected evaluation and cognitive style was statistically significant. Under an experimental condition of expected evaluation, field‐dependent adolescents performed more creatively (i.e., higher originality) than those without expected evaluation. Study 2 uncovered main effects of expected evaluation type and cognitive style on creativity but no interactions between expected evaluation type and cognitive style. Adolescents performed better on the dimension of flexibility in a controlling evaluation condition, compared with adolescents in informational evaluation condition, and field‐independent adolescents showed more fluency and originality than field‐dependent adolescents. Together, this research provides a better understanding of the effects of expected evaluation and cognitive style on adolescents' creative performance. Implications for further research are discussed.

No abstract

Recently, it has been proposed that solving addition and subtraction problems can evoke horizontal shifts of spatial attention. However, prior to this study, it remained unclear whether orienting shifts of spatial attention relied on actual arithmetic processes (i.e., the activated magnitude) or the semantic spatial association of the operator. In this study, spatial–arithmetic associations were explored through three experiments using an eye tracker, which attempted to investigate the mechanism of those associations. Experiment 1 replicated spatial–arithmetic associations in addition and subtraction problems. Experiments 2 and 3 selected zero as the operand to investigate whether these arithmetic problems could induce shifts of spatial attention. Experiment 2 indicated that addition and subtraction problems (zero as the second operand, i.e., 2 + 0) do not induce shifts of spatial attention. Experiment 3 showed that addition and subtraction arithmetic (zero as the first operand, i.e., 0 + 2) do facilitate rightward and leftward eye movement, respectively. This indicates that the operator alone does not induce horizontal eye movement. However, our findings support the idea that solving addition and subtraction problems is associated with horizontal shifts of spatial attention.