The Involvement of Working Memory in Children's Exact and Approximate Mental Addition

Autor/inn/en	Caviola, Sara; Mammarella, Irene C.; Cornoldi, Cesare; Lucangeli, Daniela
Titel	The Involvement of Working Memory in Children's Exact and Approximate Mental Addition
Quelle	In: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 112 (2012) 2, S.141-160 (20 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0022-0965
DOI	10.1016/j.jecp.2012.02.005
Schlagwörter	Mental Computation; Short Term Memory; Grade 3; Grade 4; Arithmetic; Task Analysis; Primary Education; Problem Solving; Addition; Spatial Ability; Experiments; Verbal Ability; Elementary School Students; Child Psychology + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Kopfrechnen; Kurzzeitgedächtnis; School year 03; 3. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 03; School year 04; 4. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 04; Addition; Arithmetik; Arithmetikunterricht; Rechnen; Aufgabenanalyse; Primarbereich; Problemlösen; Räumliches Vorstellungsvermögen; Erprobung; Mündliche Leistung; Kinderpsychologie
Abstract	The involvement of working memory (WM) was examined in two types of mental calculation tasks: exact and approximate. Specifically, children attending Grades 3 and 4 of primary school were involved in three experiments that examined the role of verbal and visuospatial WM in solving addition problems presented in vertical or horizontal format. For Experiment 1, the children were required to solve addition problems with carrying. For Experiment 2, they were required to solve addition problems without carrying. Then, for Experiment 3, the children needed to solve approximate problems with and without carrying. Results confirmed that different WM components are involved in solving mental addition problems. In Experiment 1, horizontally presented addition problems were more impaired than vertically presented ones, according to a verbal WM load; conversely, vertically presented addition problems were more affected by a visuospatial WM load, especially when the children were required to perform approximate calculations. In Experiment 2, this pattern emerged in neither exact nor approximate calculations. Finally, in Experiment 3, the specific involvement of WM components was observed only in problems with carrying. Overall, these results reveal that both approximate calculation and carrying procedures demand particularly high WM resources that vary according to the task's constraints. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10