{"pk":25443,"title":"Complex Mental Addition and Multiplication Rely More on Visuospatial than\nVerbal Processing","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Recent imaging studies have found that in simple arithmetic\nprocessing, addition is lateralized to the right hemisphere,\nwhereas multiplication to the left. Here we aimed to\ninvestigate the cognitive mechanism underlying complicated\narithmetic processing with a dual task paradigm. Participants\nwere asked to complete a calculation task (addition or\nmultiplication) and a letter judgment task (rhyme or shape\njudgment) simultaneously. We found that participants’\nperformance in addition and multiplication was interfered\nmore by the simultaneous shape judgment task than the rhyme\njudgment task. This effect suggested that both complicated\naddition and multiplication relied more on right-lateralized\nvisuospatial than left-lateralized phonological/verbal\nprocessing. The shift from left- to more right-lateralized\nprocessing in complicated multiplication suggests that\nparticipants may have adopted a visuospatial strategy to\napproximate numerosity when the calculation involved large\nnumbers. These results suggest that the cognitive mechanism\ninvolved in arithmetic processing depends on both the\noperation and the context.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"arithmetic processing; hemispheric lateralization;\ndual task paradigm"}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6md5f10c","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Tommy","middle_name":"Kwun-leuk","last_name":"Cheung","name_suffix":"","institution":"Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong","department":""},{"first_name":"Janet","middle_name":"Hui-wen","last_name":"Hsiao","name_suffix":"","institution":"Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2015-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/25443/galley/15067/download/"}]}