Anatomically ordered tapping interferes more with one-digit addition than two-digit addition: a dual-task fMRI study

Soylu, Fırat; Newman, Sharlene D.

doi:10.1007/s10339-015-0737-2

Cited by 29 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 44 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Embodied accounts of mathematics, especially sensorimotor simulation theories (Soylu, 2011(Soylu, , 2016Svensson, 2007), address this missing component. The embodied account is corroborated by neurocognitive studies showing that the finger sensorimotor network continues to play a role in adults' number processing (Andres, Davare, Pesenti, Olivier, & Seron, 2004;Badets, Andres, Di Luca, & Pesenti, 2007;Di Luca & Pesenti, 2008;Rusconi, Walsh, & Butterworth, 2005;Soylu & Newman, 2016), and that early finger counting experiences leave a lasting effect on adults' performance and neural correlates for number processing (Newman & Soylu, 2014;Tschentscher, Hauk, Fischer, & Pulvermuller, 2012). The grounded model argues that number processing does not become disembodied with age and instead early bodily interactions help establish the number network and leave a lasting trace on numerical cognition.…”

Section: Embodied Approachesmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…They proposed that the finger counting-based strategies used in childhood for addition and subtraction, but not for multiplication, leads to an early grounding of addition and subtraction processes in finger representations. Soylu and Newman (2016) followed up on these findings and studied the interaction between arithmetic difficulty and tapping complexity in a dual-task fMRI study. They reported differential interference of finger movements on single-digit addition, compared to double-digit addition, and traced this effect to the modulation of activity in the left angular gyrus.…”

Section: The Relation Between Finger and Number Representations In Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

You can count on your fingers: The role of fingers in early mathematical development

2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Even though mathematics is considered one of the most abstract domains of human cognition, recent work on embodiment of mathematics has shown that we make sense of mathematical concepts by using insights and skills acquired through bodily activity. Fingers play a significant role in many of these bodily interactions. Finger-based interactions provide the preliminary access to foundational mathematical constructs, such as one-to-one correspondence and whole-part relations in early development. In addition, children across cultures use their fingers to count and do simple arithmetic. There is also some evidence for an association between children’s ability to individuate fingers (finger gnosis) and mathematics ability. Paralleling these behavioral findings, there is accumulating evidence for overlapping neural correlates and functional associations between fingers and number processing. In this paper, we synthesize mathematics education and neurocognitive research on the relevance of fingers for early mathematics development. We delve into issues such as how the early multimodal (tactile, motor, visuospatial) experiences with fingers might be the gateway for later numerical skills, how finger gnosis, finger counting habits, and numerical abilities are associated at the behavioral and neural levels, and implications for mathematics education. We argue that, taken together, the two bodies of research can better inform how different finger skills support the development of numerical competencies, and we provide a road map for future interdisciplinary research that can yield to development of diagnostic tools and interventions for preschool and primary grade classrooms.

show abstract

Section: Embodied Approachesmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: The Relation Between Finger and Number Representations In Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

You can count on your fingers: The role of fingers in early mathematical development

2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the above discussed Berteletti and Booth (2015) study subtraction differentially activated motor cortex suggesting involvement of implicit finger counting strategies for subtraction but not multiplication. Also, Soylu and Newman (2016) explored the relation between addition and finger tapping, and found that one-digit addition is more affected from concurrent anatomically-ordered tapping than two-digit addition, which supports a specific association between addition fact retrieval and anatomically ordered finger movements in adults, possibly due to use of finger counting strategies that deploy anatomically ordered finger movements early in the development. This variance in the involvement of fingers may be related to the differences in the processing required for different arithmetic operations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 73%

“…Therefore, the differential correlation in the IPL may be due to differences in the way addition facts are stored in memory. Multiple studies with adult participants provide evidence for simple arithmetic, which is assumed to rely on retrieval, using finger-based representations (Andres et al, 2012;Michaux et al, 2013;Soylu & Newman, 2016), reminiscent of fingercounting strategies in early childhood. This phenomenon can be considered within the wider framework of embodied memory, where memory retrieval is considered to use mental simulation of the sensorimotor states involved in the construction of the memory (Glenberg, 1997).…”

Section: Differential Correlation In the Left Inferior Parietal Lobulementioning

confidence: 99%

The differential relationship between finger gnosis, and addition and subtraction: An fMRI study

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The impact of fingers on numerical cognition has received a great deal of attention recently. One sub-set of these studies focus on the relation between finger gnosis (also called finger sense or finger gnosia), the ability to identify and individuate fingers, and mathematical development. Studies in this subdomain have reported mixed findings so far. While some studies reported that finger gnosis correlates with or predicts mathematics abilities in younger children, others failed to replicate these results. The current study explores the relationship between finger gnosis and two arithmetic operations—addition and subtraction. Twenty-four second to third graders participated in this fMRI study. Finger sense scores were negatively correlated with brain activation measured during both addition and subtraction. Three clusters, in the left fusiform, and left and right precuneus were found to negatively correlate with finger gnosis both during addition and subtraction. Activation in a cluster in the left inferior parietal lobule (IPL) was found to negatively correlate with finger gnosis only for addition, even though this cluster was active both during addition and subtraction. These results suggest that the arithmetic fact retrieval may be linked to finger gnosis at the neural level, both for addition and subtraction, even when behavioral correlations are not observed. However, the nature of this link may be different for addition compared to subtraction, given that left IPL activation correlated with finger gnosis only for addition. Together the results reported appear to support the hypothesis that fingers provide a scaffold for arithmetic competency for both arithmetic operations.

show abstract

“…Evidence for the existence of two motor control regimes for repetitive movements, an automatic and a cognitively controlled regime according to (i), where only the cognitive control mode shows interference under MCDT conditions according to (ii) comes from a study by Soylu and Newman (2016) . They observed underadditive effects in brain activation in an fMRI study where subjects had to perform finger-tapping movements under ST and MCDT conditions (calculation).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Support for ‘Hastening-Through-Re-Automatization’ by Contrasting Two Motor-Cognitive Dual Tasks

Langhanns

Müller

2018

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Motor-cognitive dual tasks have been intensely studied and it has been demonstrated that even well practiced movements like walking show signs of interference when performed concurrently with a challenging cognitive task. Typically walking speed is reduced, at least in elderly persons. In contrast to these findings, some authors report an increased movement frequency under dual-task conditions, which they call hastening. A tentative explanation has been proposed, assuming that the respective movements are governed by an automatic control regime. Though, under single-task conditions, these automatic processes are supervised by “higher-order” cognitive control processes. However, when a concurrent cognitive task binds all cognitive resources, the automatic process is freed from the detrimental effect of cognitive surveillance, allowing higher movement frequencies. Fast rhythmic movements (>1 Hz) should more likely be governed by such an automatic process than low frequency discrete repetitive movements. Fifteen subjects performed two repetitive movements under single and dual-task condition, that is, in combination with a mental calculation task. According to the expectations derived from the explanatory concept, we found an increased movement frequency under dual-task conditions only for the fast rhythmic movement (paddleball task) but not for the slower discrete repetitive task (pegboard task). fNIRS measurements of prefrontal cortical load confirmed the idea of an automatic processing in the paddleball task, whereas the pegboard task seems to be more controlled by processes interfering with the calculation related processing.

show abstract

Anatomically ordered tapping interferes more with one-digit addition than two-digit addition: a dual-task fMRI study

Cited by 29 publications

References 44 publications

You can count on your fingers: The role of fingers in early mathematical development

You can count on your fingers: The role of fingers in early mathematical development

The differential relationship between finger gnosis, and addition and subtraction: An fMRI study

Empirical Support for ‘Hastening-Through-Re-Automatization’ by Contrasting Two Motor-Cognitive Dual Tasks

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About