Distinct procedures underlying additions and multiplications revealed by intermodulation components in frequency-tagged electroencephalogram
(2024) Mathematical Cognition and Learning Society (MCLS) — Location: Washington, D.C. (26.June.2024)
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- Until recently, there was a consensus that children start to solve single-digit additions and multiplications by costly procedural strategies and progressively switch to a memory-based resolution when encountering these problems recurrently. However, the idea that adults use retrieval for simple additions was challenged by behavioral studies. Instead, it was suggested that additions are solved by fast counting procedures akin to shifts of attention along a mental number line (MNL). Because additions are also associated to an over-estimation bias termed operational momentum (OM), it was proposed that the attentional shifts are going too far when navigating on the MNL. Such counting procedure and the OM should leave a trace at the neuronal level but remains unexplored. Here, we used frequency tagging with electroencephalogram (EEG) to identify the neural signature of OM while adult participants viewed single-digit- additions and multiplications with proposed solutions that were either correct, incorrect-smaller (correct-1) or incorrect-larger (correct+1). The problem and the proposed solution were presented visually and flickered at distinct frequencies (F1 & F2, respectively). We searched for EEG responses at intermodulation frequency terms (e.g., f1+f2) that occur only if the two flickering stimuli are integrated into a single representation by responding neurons. Accordingly, correct trials elicited temporoparietal and frontocentral responses at intermodulation frequency terms, indicating an integration of the problem and its’ solution. Incorrect conditions did not reveal intermodulation, with the exception of incorrect-larger addition, compatible with the OM. This supports the theory that single-digit additions and multiplications are solved by mechanisms of a distinct nature.
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Masson, N., Schiltz, C., & Retter, T. (2024). Distinct procedures underlying additions and multiplications revealed by intermodulation components in frequency-tagged electroencephalogram. Mathematical Cognition and Learning Society (MCLS), Washington, D.C. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/238027