IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0155543.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dot Display Affects Approximate Number System Acuity and Relationships with Mathematical Achievement and Inhibitory Control

Author

Listed:
  • Jade Eloise Norris
  • Julie Castronovo

Abstract

Much research has investigated the relationship between the Approximate Number System (ANS) and mathematical achievement, with continued debate surrounding the existence of such a link. The use of different stimulus displays may account for discrepancies in the findings. Indeed, closer scrutiny of the literature suggests that studies supporting a link between ANS acuity and mathematical achievement in adults have mostly measured the ANS using spatially intermixed displays (e.g. of blue and yellow dots), whereas those failing to replicate a link have primarily used spatially separated dot displays. The current study directly compared ANS acuity when using intermixed or separate dots, investigating how such methodological variation mediated the relationship between ANS acuity and mathematical achievement. ANS acuity was poorer and less reliable when measured with intermixed displays, with performance during both conditions related to inhibitory control. Crucially, mathematical achievement was significantly related to ANS accuracy difference (accuracy on congruent trials minus accuracy on incongruent trials) when measured with intermixed displays, but not with separate displays. The findings indicate that methodological variation affects ANS acuity outcomes, as well as the apparent relationship between the ANS and mathematical achievement. Moreover, the current study highlights the problem of low reliabilities of ANS measures. Further research is required to construct ANS measures with improved reliability, and to understand which processes may be responsible for the increased likelihood of finding a correlation between the ANS and mathematical achievement when using intermixed displays.

Suggested Citation

  • Jade Eloise Norris & Julie Castronovo, 2016. "Dot Display Affects Approximate Number System Acuity and Relationships with Mathematical Achievement and Inhibitory Control," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-15, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0155543
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155543
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0155543
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0155543&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0155543?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Justin Halberda & Michèle M. M. Mazzocco & Lisa Feigenson, 2008. "Individual differences in non-verbal number acuity correlate with maths achievement," Nature, Nature, vol. 455(7213), pages 665-668, October.
    2. Julie Castronovo & Silke M Göbel, 2012. "Impact of High Mathematics Education on the Number Sense," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-16, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yulia Kuzmina & Tatiana Tikhomirova & Irina Lysenkova & Sergey Malykh, 2020. "Domain-general cognitive functions fully explained growth in nonsymbolic magnitude representation but not in symbolic representation in elementary school children," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(2), pages 1-23, February.
    2. Carmen Brankaer & Pol Ghesquière & Bert De Smedt, 2014. "Children’s Mapping between Non-Symbolic and Symbolic Numerical Magnitudes and Its Association with Timed and Untimed Tests of Mathematics Achievement," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(4), pages 1-11, April.
    3. Fabio P. Leite & Roger Ratcliff, 2011. "What cognitive processes drive response biases? A diffusion model analysis," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 6(7), pages 651-687, October.
    4. Liat Goldfarb & Sharon Levy, 2013. "Counting within the Subitizing Range: The Effect of Number of Distractors on the Perception of Subset Items," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-8, September.
    5. Michèle M M Mazzocco & Lisa Feigenson & Justin Halberda, 2011. "Preschoolers' Precision of the Approximate Number System Predicts Later School Mathematics Performance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(9), pages 1-8, September.
    6. repec:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:7:p:651-687 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:3:p:330-344 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Riccardo Williams & Silvia Andreassi & Marta Moselli & Fiorella Fantini & Annalisa Tanzilli & Vittorio Lingiardi & Fiorenzo Laghi, 2023. "Relationship between Executive Functions, Social Cognition, and Attachment State of Mind in Adolescence: An Explorative Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-14, February.
    9. Roger, Tristan & Roger, Patrick & Willinger, Marc, 2022. "Number sense, trading decisions and mispricing: An experiment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    10. Ye, Jun & Zhou, Kun & Chen, Rui, 2021. "Numerical or verbal Information: The effect of comparative information in social comparison on prosocial behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 198-211.
    11. Lukowski, Sarah L. & Rosenberg-Lee, Miriam & Thompson, Lee A. & Hart, Sara A. & Willcutt, Erik G. & Olson, Richard K. & Petrill, Stephen A. & Pennington, Bruce F., 2017. "Approximate number sense shares etiological overlap with mathematics and general cognitive ability," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 67-74.
    12. Luke F. Rinne & Michele M. M. Mazzocco, 2013. "Inferring uncertainty from interval estimates: Effects of alpha level and numeracy," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(3), pages 330-344, May.
    13. Julie Castronovo & Silke M Göbel, 2012. "Impact of High Mathematics Education on the Number Sense," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-16, April.
    14. Kyungmin Lee & Soohyun Cho, 2019. "Visuo-spatial (but not verbal) executive working memory capacity modulates susceptibility to non-numerical visual magnitudes during numerosity comparison," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-16, March.
    15. Danielle Hoffmann & Christophe Mussolin & Romain Martin & Christine Schiltz, 2014. "The Impact of Mathematical Proficiency on the Number-Space Association," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, January.
    16. Delphine Sasanguie & Bert Reynvoet, 2014. "Adults' Arithmetic Builds on Fast and Automatic Processing of Arabic Digits: Evidence from an Audiovisual Matching Paradigm," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(2), pages 1-6, February.
    17. Fang, Shijia & Zhou, Xinlin, 2022. "Form perception speed is critical for the relationship between non-verbal number sense and arithmetic fluency," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    18. Anna A Matejko & Daniel Ansari, 2016. "Trajectories of Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Magnitude Processing in the First Year of Formal Schooling," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, March.
    19. Tamara M J Schleepen & Hanneke I Van Mier & Bert De Smedt, 2016. "The Contribution of Numerical Magnitude Comparison and Phonological Processing to Individual Differences in Fourth Graders’ Multiplication Fact Ability," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(6), pages 1-20, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0155543. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.