Can the interference effect in multiplication fact retrieval be modulated by an arithmetic training? An fMRI study

Alexander E Heidekum,Alice De Visscher,Stephan E Vogel,Bert De Smedt,Roland H Grabner

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107849

Alexander E Heidekum, Alice De Visscher + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107849

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Abstract

Single-digit multiplications are thought to be associated with different levels of interference because they show different degrees of feature overlap (i.e., digits) with previously learnt problems. Recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies provided evidence for this interference effect and showed that individual differences in arithmetic fact retrieval are related to differences in sensitivity to interference (STI). The present study investigated whether and to what extent competence-related differences in STI and its neurophysiological correlates can be modulated by a multiplication facts training.Participants were 23 adults with high and 23 adults with low arithmetic competencies who underwent a five-day multiplication facts training in which they intensively practiced sets of low- and high-interfering multiplication problems. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) test session after the training, participants worked on a multiplication verification task that comprised trained and untrained problems.Analyses of the behavioral data revealed an interference effect only in the low competence group, which could be reduced but not resolved by training. On the neural level, competence-related differences in the interference effect were observed in the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG), showing activation differences between low- and high-interfering problems only in the low competent group. These findings support the idea that individuals’ low arithmetic skills are related to the development of insufficient memory representations because of STI. Further, our results indicate that a short training by drill (i.e., learning associations between operands and solutions) was not fully effective to resolve existing interference effects in arithmetic fact knowledge.

Highlights

Retrieving the correct answer to arithmetic problems, such as 3 × 4, provides the basis to process complex calculations more efficiently (Kilpatrick et al, 2001)
The application of procedural strategies, on the other hand, activated a widespread fronto-parietal network (e.g., the left and right insula lobe, the left inferior parietal lobule (IPL), the left and right supplementary motor areas (SMA) and the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). These findings indicate that the left angular gyrus mediates arithmetic fact retrieval whereas solving effortful problems by procedural strategies is accom panied by broad fronto-parietal activation
Analyses revealed a significant main effect of Training status (F(1,44) = 12.11, p < .01, ƞp2 = 0.216), showing that response latencies for trained multi plication problems were significantly shorter (M = 699 ms) compared to untrained multiplication problems (M = 742 ms), and a significant main effect of Interference level (F(1,44) = 12.05, p < .01, ƞp2 = 0.215), indicating that response latencies for low interfering problems (M = 670 ms) were significantly shorter compared to high interfering problems (M = 771 ms)

Summary

Introduction

Retrieving the correct answer to arithmetic problems, such as 3 × 4, provides the basis to process complex calculations more efficiently (Kilpatrick et al, 2001). Individuals with higher (compared to lower) sensitivity to interference would experience more proactive interference (from previously learned problems) during arithmetic fact learning, which results in poorer memory representations and lower arithmetic competencies Evidence for this assumption was found on behavioral (De Visscher and Noel, 2014b) and on neural level (De Visscher et al, 2018). De Visscher and Noel (2014a) have shown that performance in single-digit multiplication problems is influenced by similarities (i.e., the digit composition of the problem and its answer) between problems According to their STI hypothesis, arithmetic facts learning (multipli cations) suffers from proactive interference because many multiplica tions share the same elements (i.e., the digits from 0 to 9) (based on the model of Oberauer and Lange, 2008). The more elements (i.e., digit associations) a multiplication shares with previously learnt problems, the more inter ference must be resolved and the more difficult it is to memorize the problem-answer association and retrieve it from memory

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