Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Multiplication facts and the mental number line: evidence from unbounded number line estimation

Multiplication facts and the mental number line: evidence from unbounded number line estimation A spatial representation of number magnitude, aka the mental number line, is considered one of the basic numerical representations. One way to assess it is number line estimation (e.g., positioning 43 on a number line ranging from 0 to 100). Recently, a new unbounded version of the number line estimation task was suggested: without labeled endpoints but a predefined unit, which was argued to provide a purer measure of spatial numerical representations. To further investigate the processes determining estimation performance in the unbounded number line task, we used an adapted version with variable units other than 1 to evaluate influences of (i) the size of a given unit and (ii) multiples of the units as target numbers on participants’ estimation pattern. We observed that estimations got faster and more accurate with increasing unit sizes. On the other hand, multiples of a predefined unit were estimated faster, but not more accurately than non-multiples. These results indicate an influence of multiplication fact knowledge on spatial numerical processing. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Psychological Research Springer Journals

Multiplication facts and the mental number line: evidence from unbounded number line estimation

Download PDF
9 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/multiplication-facts-and-the-mental-number-line-evidence-from-yPZPx5hgCJ

References (30)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Subject
Psychology; Psychology Research
ISSN
0340-0727
eISSN
1430-2772
DOI
10.1007/s00426-013-0538-0
pmid
24385233
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

A spatial representation of number magnitude, aka the mental number line, is considered one of the basic numerical representations. One way to assess it is number line estimation (e.g., positioning 43 on a number line ranging from 0 to 100). Recently, a new unbounded version of the number line estimation task was suggested: without labeled endpoints but a predefined unit, which was argued to provide a purer measure of spatial numerical representations. To further investigate the processes determining estimation performance in the unbounded number line task, we used an adapted version with variable units other than 1 to evaluate influences of (i) the size of a given unit and (ii) multiples of the units as target numbers on participants’ estimation pattern. We observed that estimations got faster and more accurate with increasing unit sizes. On the other hand, multiples of a predefined unit were estimated faster, but not more accurately than non-multiples. These results indicate an influence of multiplication fact knowledge on spatial numerical processing.

Journal

Psychological Research – Springer Journals

Published: Jan 3, 2014

There are no references for this article.