Functional neuroanatomy involved in automatic order mental arithmetic and recitation of the multiplication table: A concurrent quantity processing mechanism in actual computation

Adult observers are widely assumed to be equipped with a specific memory store containing arithmetic facts. The present study was aimed at exploring the possibility of obtaining an automatic activation of multiplication facts by using the number-matching paradigm (LeFevre, Bisanz, & Mrkonjic, 1988), in which mental arithmetic is task irrelevant. In particular, we were interested in exploring whether the nodes that precede or follow the product node in the multiplication table can also be automatically activated as a consequence of the mere presentation of two numbers. In Experiments 1 and 2, we showed that participants were slower in responding “no“ to probes that were numbers adjacent to the product in the table related to the first operand of the initial pair than to probes that were unrelated to the initial pair. In Experiments 3 and 4, we showed a similar pattern for probes that were numbers adjacent to the product in the table related to the second operand of the initial pair. Experiments 5 and 6 ruled out alternative accounts and confirmed the results of the previous experiments. Taken together the present findings suggest that multiplication facts are stored in a highly related network in which activation spreads from the product node to adjacent nodes.

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Slow Wave Activity Related to Working Memory Maintenance in the N-Back Task

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803/a000164 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 30 (4) ◽

pp. 141-154 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Kira Bailey ◽

Gregory Mlynarczyk ◽

Robert West

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Slow Wave ◽

Time Course ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Wave Activity ◽

Slow Wave Activity ◽

Response Accuracy ◽

Functional Neuroanatomy ◽

Stimulus Interval ◽

Back Task

Abstract. Working memory supports our ability to maintain goal-relevant information that guides cognition in the face of distraction or competing tasks. The N-back task has been widely used in cognitive neuroscience to examine the functional neuroanatomy of working memory. Fewer studies have capitalized on the temporal resolution of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to examine the time course of neural activity in the N-back task. The primary goal of the current study was to characterize slow wave activity observed in the response-to-stimulus interval in the N-back task that may be related to maintenance of information between trials in the task. In three experiments, we examined the effects of N-back load, interference, and response accuracy on the amplitude of the P3b following stimulus onset and slow wave activity elicited in the response-to-stimulus interval. Consistent with previous research, the amplitude of the P3b decreased as N-back load increased. Slow wave activity over the frontal and posterior regions of the scalp was sensitive to N-back load and was insensitive to interference or response accuracy. Together these findings lead to the suggestion that slow wave activity observed in the response-to-stimulus interval is related to the maintenance of information between trials in the 1-back task.

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Relation Between Level of Prefrontal Activity and Subject's Performance

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027//0269-8803.13.2.117 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 117-125 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Laurence Casini ◽

Françoise Macar ◽

Marie-Hélène Giard

Keyword(s):

Brain Activity ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Practice Phase ◽

Trained Subjects ◽

Anagram Task ◽

Economic Information ◽

Long Duration ◽

Level Of Activity ◽

The Brain ◽

Processing Mechanism

Abstract The experiment reported here was aimed at determining whether the level of brain activity can be related to performance in trained subjects. Two tasks were compared: a temporal and a linguistic task. An array of four letters appeared on a screen. In the temporal task, subjects had to decide whether the letters remained on the screen for a short or a long duration as learned in a practice phase. In the linguistic task, they had to determine whether the four letters could form a word or not (anagram task). These tasks allowed us to compare the level of brain activity obtained in correct and incorrect responses. The current density measures recorded over prefrontal areas showed a relationship between the performance and the level of activity in the temporal task only. The level of activity obtained with correct responses was lower than that obtained with incorrect responses. This suggests that a good temporal performance could be the result of an efficacious, but economic, information-processing mechanism in the brain. In addition, the absence of this relation in the anagram task results in the question of whether this relation is specific to the processing of sensory information only.

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