Age does not count: resilience of quantity processing in healthy ageing

Lambrechts, Anna; Karolis, Vyacheslav; Garcia, Sara; Obende, Jennifer; Cappelletti, Marinella

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00865

Cited by 16 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…Children who had better number precision also had better area precision. That individual differences in precision were correlated across magnitude representations replicates recent research with adults (DeWind & Brannon, ; Lambrechts, Karolis, Garcia, Obende & Cappelletti, ; Lourenco et al ., ; Tibber et al ., ) and extends this finding to children (see also Starr & Brannon, ). This finding suggests that numerical and non‐numerical magnitudes are represented with common precision across development, consistent with a general magnitude system (see Discussion).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 81%

Representations of numerical and non‐numerical magnitude both contribute to mathematical competence in children

Lourenco

Bonny

2016

Developmental Science

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A growing body of evidence suggests that non-symbolic representations of number, which humans share with nonhuman animals, are functionally related to uniquely human mathematical thought. Other research suggesting that numerical and non-numerical magnitudes not only share analog format but also form part of a general magnitude system raises questions about whether the non-symbolic basis of mathematical thinking is unique to numerical magnitude. Here we examined this issue in 5- and 6-year-old children using comparison tasks of non-symbolic number arrays and cumulative area as well as standardized tests of math competence. One set of findings revealed that scores on both magnitude comparison tasks were modulated by ratio, consistent with shared analog format. Moreover, scores on these tasks were moderately correlated, suggesting overlap in the precision of numerical and non-numerical magnitudes, as expected under a general magnitude system. Another set of findings revealed that the precision of both types of magnitude contributed shared and unique variance to the same math measures (e.g. calculation and geometry), after accounting for age and verbal competence. These findings argue against an exclusive role for non-symbolic number in supporting early mathematical understanding. Moreover, they suggest that mathematical understanding may be rooted in a general system of magnitude representation that is not specific to numerical magnitude but that also encompasses non-numerical magnitude.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 81%

Representations of numerical and non‐numerical magnitude both contribute to mathematical competence in children

Lourenco

Bonny

2016

Developmental Science

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“…Examining variations in spatial-numerical performance over the lifespan may give us new insight into the origin(s) of both directional and non-directional SNAs as introduced above (for a similar approach, see Lambrechts et al, 2013 ). For instance, when the SNARC effect reflects an ad hoc association between the ordinal position of an item in working memory and the response side ( van Dijck and Fias, 2011 ), the effect should be relatively smaller for children as well as the elderly when compared to young and middle-aged adults, due to working memory limitations (see Figure 1C ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Directional and Non-directional Spatial-Numerical Associations across the Lifespan

et al. 2017

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There is accumulating evidence suggesting an association of numbers with physical space. However, the origin of such spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) is still debated. In the present study we investigated the development of two SNAs in a cross-sectional study involving children, young and middle-aged adults as well as the elderly: (1) the SNARC (spatial-numerical association of response codes) effect, reflecting a directional SNA; and (2) the numerical bisection bias in a line bisection task with numerical flankers. Results revealed a consistent SNARC effect in all age groups that continuously increased with age. In contrast, a numerical bisection bias was only observed for children and elderly participants, implying an U-shaped distribution of this bias across age groups. Additionally, individual SNARC effects and numerical bisection biases did not correlate significantly. We argue that the SNARC effect seems to be influenced by longer-lasting experiences of cultural constraints such as reading and writing direction and may thus reflect embodied representations. Contrarily, the numerical bisection bias may originate from insufficient inhibition of the semantic influence of irrelevant numerical flankers, which should be more pronounced in children and elderly people due to development and decline of cognitive control, respectively. As there is an ongoing debate on the origins of SNAs in general and the SNARC effect in particular, the present results are discussed in light of these differing accounts in an integrative approach. However, taken together, the present pattern of results suggests that different cognitive mechanisms underlie the SNARC effect and the numerical bisection bias.

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“…Although older adults made more duration comparison errors, there was no effect of aging on numerosity comparison, with older, younger and PD participants performing similarly. Further, Lambrechts et al (2013) studied spatial and duration processing in older and younger adults using comparison and bisection tasks of continuous quantity, such as length and duration. Lambrechts et al (2013) concluded that continuous quantity processing skills were resilient to aging, likely due to their primitive basis (i.e., their appearance very early in development).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aging and the number sense: preserved basic non-symbolic numerical processing and enhanced basic symbolic processing

et al. 2015

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Aging often leads to general cognitive decline in domains such as memory and attention. The effect of aging on numerical cognition, particularly on foundational numerical skills known as the number sense, is not well-known. Early research focused on the effect of aging on arithmetic. Recent studies have begun to investigate the impact of healthy aging on basic numerical skills, but focused on non-symbolic quantity discrimination alone. Moreover, contradictory findings have emerged. The current study aimed to further investigate the impact of aging on basic non-symbolic and symbolic numerical skills. A group of 25 younger (18–25) and 25 older adults (60–77) participated in non-symbolic and symbolic numerical comparison tasks. Mathematical and spelling abilities were also measured. Results showed that aging had no effect on foundational non-symbolic numerical skills, as both groups performed similarly [RTs, accuracy and Weber fractions (w)]. All participants showed decreased non-symbolic acuity (accuracy and w) in trials requiring inhibition. However, aging appears to be associated with a greater decline in discrimination speed in such trials. Furthermore, aging seems to have a positive impact on mathematical ability and basic symbolic numerical processing, as older participants attained significantly higher mathematical achievement scores, and performed significantly better on the symbolic comparison task than younger participants. The findings suggest that aging and its lifetime exposure to numbers may lead to better mathematical achievement and stronger basic symbolic numerical skills. Our results further support the observation that basic non-symbolic numerical skills are resilient to aging, but that aging may exacerbate poorer performance on trials requiring inhibitory processes. These findings lend further support to the notion that preserved basic numerical skills in aging may reflect the preservation of an innate, primitive, and embedded number sense.

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Age does not count: resilience of quantity processing in healthy ageing

Cited by 16 publications

References 94 publications

Representations of numerical and non‐numerical magnitude both contribute to mathematical competence in children

Representations of numerical and non‐numerical magnitude both contribute to mathematical competence in children

Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Directional and Non-directional Spatial-Numerical Associations across the Lifespan

Aging and the number sense: preserved basic non-symbolic numerical processing and enhanced basic symbolic processing

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