Abstract
Magnitude processing is one of the most central cognitive mechanisms that underlie persistent mathematics difficulties. No consensus has yet been reached about whether these difficulties can be predominantly attributed to deficits in symbolic or nonsymbolic magnitude processing. To investigate this issue, we assessed symbolic and nonsymbolic magnitude representations in children with low or typical achievement in school mathematics. Response latencies and the distance effect were comparable between groups in both symbolic and nonsymbolic tasks. The results indicated that both typical and low achievers were able to access magnitude representation via symbolic and nonsymbolic processing. However, low achievers presented higher error rates than typical achievers, especially in the nonsymbolic task. Furthermore, measures of nonsymbolic magnitude explained individual differences in school mathematics better than measures of symbolic magnitude when considering all of the children together. When examining the groups separately, symbolic magnitude representation explained differences in school mathematics in low achievers but not in typical achievers. These results suggest that symbolic magnitude is more relevant to solving arithmetic problems when mathematics achievement is particularly low. In contrast, individual differences in nonsymbolic processing appear to be related to mathematics achievement in a more general manner.
Highlights
Mathematics difficulties (MD) are currently defined as persistent and severe difficulties in acquiring specific abilities related to mathematics that cannot be attributedOne influential model of number processing attributes the main deficits encountered in MD to core magnitude representation difficulties (Piazza et al, 2010). Feigenson, Dehaene, & Spelke (2004) proposing that infants and adult humans share an approximate number system dedicated to representing number magnitude in an abstract form
According to the core deficit hypothesis, developmental dyscalculia is caused by a deficit that is specific to the approximate number system and is characterized by low performance on tasks that assess number magnitude, such as nonsymbolic numerosity tasks (Dehaene, 1992, 2009)
Many authors argue that learning the symbolic number system may be at least as important for explaining deficits in MD as a deficit in the more basal competencies related to the approximate number system (e.g., Rousselle & Nöel, 2007)
Summary
Mathematics difficulties (MD) are currently defined as persistent and severe difficulties in acquiring specific abilities related to mathematics that cannot be attributedOne influential model of number processing attributes the main deficits encountered in MD to core magnitude representation difficulties (Piazza et al, 2010). Feigenson, Dehaene, & Spelke (2004) proposing that infants and adult humans share an approximate number system dedicated to representing number magnitude in an abstract form. According to the core deficit hypothesis, developmental dyscalculia is caused by a deficit that is specific to the approximate number system and is characterized by low performance on tasks that assess number magnitude, such as nonsymbolic numerosity tasks (Dehaene, 1992, 2009). Mussolin, Mejias, & Noel (2010) proposed a Two-Factor Theory of developmental dyscalculia that relates arithmetic achievement to both symbolic and nonsymbolic number representations. According to this theory, children are born with a nonsymbolic number sense and learn in school to map exact numerical symbols onto the internal number representations. Dyscalculic children may initially have a weak number sense, and this deficit may prevent them from benefiting from the increasing precision yielded by symbolic numbers (Mussolin et al, 2010)
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