Operator and operand preview effects in simple addition and multiplication: A comparison of Canadian and Chinese adults

Abstract

Using an arithmetic-based retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) paradigm, researchers have found evidence that participants with very high arithmetic proficiency (Chinese adults), but not less-skilled participants (Canadian adults), solved some simple additions (e.g. 3 + 2) using fast procedural skills. Here we sought converging evidence for this using the operator-priming paradigm. Previous research testing simple addition and multiplication found that a 150-ms preview of the operator (+ or ×) facilitated only addition performance. This was taken as evidence that addition, but not multiplication, was solved by procedural algorithms that could be primed by presentation of the plus sign. In the present study, Chinese and Canadian adults (N = 144) were tested in the operator-priming paradigm but, in contrast to the RIF results, there was little evidence that operator-priming effects differed between the groups and robust operator priming was observed in both addition and multiplication. Thus, the operator preview results did not reinforce the results of previous research but the experiment revealed robust group differences in operand preview effects: For the Chinese, but not the Canadians, a preview of the numerical operands produced much greater facilitation for multiplication than addition. The fact that CN obtained a mean 103-ms gain for multiplication from the 150-ms preview of the operands strongly suggests that multiplication was their default operation in this paradigm. This result adds a potentially important new phenomenon to the behavioural distinctions between Chinese and North American adults' arithmetic skills.

Keywords:

• Arithmetic
• Individual differences
• Strategies

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ To examine if switch effects contributed to preview effects in the present experiment, we followed the analytic procedure for inter-trial carryover effects of Campbell and Arbuthnott (2010) and found, as they did, a Switch × Operation interaction [F(1, 142) = 12.00, p = .001, ] in which switch costs on RT were greater for addition (51 ms) [95% confidence interval 40, 62, Campbell & Thompson, 2012b] than multiplication (18 ms) [3, 33] and that a difficult problem on the preceding trial (product of operands > 25) also tended to slow performance (14 ms) [6, 22], F(1, 142) = 10.57, p = .001, . There was no evidence, however, that operation switch costs or difficulty-related carryover effects differed between groups or interacted with the preview manipulations (see also Fayol & Thevenot, 2012).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.