Effects of Aging on Arithmetic Problem-Solving: An Event-related Brain Potential Study

Development and differences in mathematical problem-solving skills: A cross-sectional study of differences in demographic backgrounds

Problem-solving skills are the most applicable cognitive tool in mathematics, and improving the problem-solving skills of students is a primary aim of education. However, teachers need to know the best period of development and the differences among students to determine the best teaching and learning methods. This study aims to investigate the development and differences in mathematical problem-solving skills of students based on their grades, gender, and school locations. A scenario-based mathematical essay test was administered to 1067 students in grades 7-9 from schools in east Java, Indonesia, and their scores were converted into a logit scale for statistical analysis. The results of a one-way analysis of variance and an independent sample t-test showed that the students had an average level of mathematical problem-solving skills. The number of students who failed increased with the problem-solving phase. The students showed development of problem-solving skills from grade 7 to grade 8 but not in grade 9. A similar pattern of development was observed in the subsample of urban students, both male and female. The demographic background had a significant effect, as students from urban schools outperformed students from rural schools, and female students outperformed male students. The development of problem-solving skills in each phase as well as the effects of the demographic background of the participants were thoroughly examined. Further studies are needed with participants of more varied backgrounds.

Related consistent lures increase the judgment of multiplication facts: Evidence using event-related potential technique

Simple multiplication errors are primarily shown in whether the lures are related to the operands (relatedness, such as 3 × 4 = 15 vs. 17) or whether the same decades are shared with the correct answers (consistency, such as 3 × 4 = 16 vs. 21). This study used a delayed verification paradigm and event-related potential technique to investigate the effects of relatedness and consistency in simple multiplication mental arithmetic for 30 college students in an experiment of presenting probes in auditory channels. We found that, compared to the related inconsistent lures, the related consistent lures showed significantly faster reaction time and induced significantly large amplitudes of N400 and late positive component. The findings suggest that related consistent lures are less affected by the activation diffusion of the arithmetic problem, and the credibility of being perceived as the correct answer is less; the lures related to operands and sharing the same decades with the accurate results can promote the judgment of multiplication mental arithmetic, and the results support the Interacting Neighbors Model.

Estimation Strategy Utilization Is Modulated by Implicit Emotion Regulation: Evidence from Behavioral and Event-Related Potentials Studies

A large number of studies have studied the influence of emotional experience on an individual's estimation performance, but the influence of implicit emotion regulation is still unknown. Participants were asked to complete the following tasks in order: idiom matching task, multiplication computational estimation task (MCE task), gender judgment task (GJ task), and emotional experience intensity assessment task. The words matching task was adopted to achieve the purpose of implicit emotion regulation (implicit reappraisal and implicit suppression). Behavioral results showed that implicit reappraisal and implicit suppression equally contributed to improving an individual's estimation speed (but not ACC (accuracy)). The MCE task related ERP (event-related potential) results showed that the influence of implicit emotion regulation on estimation consisted of two phases. In the first phase (encoding phase), implicit reappraisal both enhanced (larger P1 amplitudes) and weakened (smaller N170 amplitudes) an individual's encoding sensitivity, while implicit suppression enhanced an individual's encoding sensitivity (larger P1 amplitudes). In the second phase (estimation strategies retrieval phase), implicit reappraisal (but not implicit suppression) cost more attention resources (larger LPC2 and LPC3 amplitudes). The present study suggested that both implicit reappraisal and implicit suppression contributed to improving an individual's estimation performance, and the regulation effect of implicit suppression (vs. implicit reappraisal) was better.

Aging and Sequential Strategy Interference: A Magnetoencephalography Study in Arithmetic Problem Solving

This study investigated age-related changes in the neural bases of sequential strategy interference. Sequential strategy interference refers to decreased strategy interference (i.e., poorer performance when the cued strategy is not the best) after executing a poorer strategy relative to after a better strategy. Young and older adults performed a computational estimation task (e.g., providing approximate products to two-digit multiplication problems, like 38 × 74) and were matched on behavioral sequential strategy interference effects. Analyses of magnetoencephalography (MEG) data revealed differences between young and older adults in brain activities underlying sequential strategy interference. More specifically, relative to young adults, older adults showed additional recruitments in frontal, temporal, and parietal regions. Also, age-related differences were found in the temporal dynamics of brain activations, with modulations occurring both earlier and later in older than young adults. These results suggest that highly functioning older adults rely on additional mechanisms to process sequential strategy interference as efficiently as young adults. Our findings inform mechanisms by which highly functioning older adults obtain as good performance as young adults, and suggest that these older adults may compensate deleterious effects of aging to efficiently execute arithmetic strategies.

Approximation processes in arithmetic in old adulthood

Young and old adults estimated the results of multidigit multiplication problems relative to a reference number. Old adults were slower but slightly more accurate than young adults. They were less affected by the distance between the reference number and the exact answer than the young adults. The same strategies reported by past research–the approximated calculation strategy and the sense of magnitude strategy—were found here. The old adults showed a stronger preference toward the approximated calculation strategy than the young ones, and this probably led to the reduced effect of distance. These patterns are interpreted as reflecting two factors. The first is the extensive experience of the old adults with mental calculation, and the second is the decline in processing speed and in working memory resources with adulthood. The former is responsible for the more frequent use of the approximated calculation strategy and for the higher accuracy of the old adults, while the latter is responsible for their slower responses.

Effects of Prior-Task Success on Young and Older Adults' Cognitive Performance an Evaluation of the Strategy Hypothesis

In prior-task success, older adults improve cognitive performance on target tasks after successfully accomplishing a prior task. We tested the hypothesis that effects of prior-task success occur via older adults’ selecting the better strategy more often and executing strategies more efficiently on each problem under a prior-task success condition. Young and older participants accomplished computational estimation tasks (i.e., providing the best estimates to arithmetic problems) under a success or a control condition. They successfully accomplished a Stroop task or accomplished no prior task before taking the target arithmetic task. Participants had to select the better strategy on each problem in Experiment 1 and to execute a cue strategy in Experiment 2. Consistent with the strategy hypothesis, older adults, but not young adults, (a) obtained better performance, (b) used the better strategy more often, (c) inappropriately repeated the same strategy less often across successive problems, and (d) executed strategies more efficiently, under a prior-task success condition relative to a control condition. These results highlight the role of strategic variations in effects of prior-task success. They have important implications when assessing age differences in human cognition during both normal and pathological aging.

The Relationship between Cognitive Reserve and Math Abilities

Cognitive Reserve is the capital of knowledge and experiences that an individual acquires over their life-span. Cognitive Reserve is strictly related to Brain Reserve, which is the ability of the brain to cope with damage. These two concepts could explain many phenomena such as the modality of onset in dementia or the different degree of impairment in cognitive abilities in aging. The aim of this study is to verify the effect of Cognitive Reserve, as measured by a questionnaire, on a variety of numerical abilities (number comprehension, reading and writing numbers, rules and principles, mental calculations and written calculations), in a group of healthy older people (aged 65–98 years). Sixty older individuals were interviewed with the Cognitive Reserve Index questionnaire (CRIq), and assessed with the Numerical Activities of Daily Living battery (NADL), which included formal tasks on math abilities, an informal test on math, one interview with the participant, and one interview with a relative on the perceived math abilities. We also took into account the years of education, as another proxy for Cognitive Reserve. In the multiple regression analyses on all formal tests, CRIq scores did not significantly predict math performance. Other variables, i.e., years of education and Mini-Mental State Examination score, accounted better for math performance on NADL. Only a subsection of CRIq, CRIq-Working-activity, was found to predict performance on a NADL subtest assessing informal use of math in daily life. These results show that education might better explain abstract math functions in late life than other aspects related to Cognitive Reserve, such as lifestyle or occupational attainment.

Brain-mechanistic responses to varying difficulty levels of approximate solutions to arithmetic problems

Approximate strategies are crucial in daily human life. The studies on the “difficulty effect” seen in approximate complex arithmetic have long been neglected. Here, we aimed to explore the brain mechanisms related to this difficulty effect in the case of complex addition, using event-related potential-based methods. Following previous path-finding studies, we used the inequality paradigm and different split sizes to induce the use of two approximate strategies for different difficulty levels. By comparing dependent variables from the medium- and large-split conditions, we anticipated being able to dissociate the effects of task difficulty based on approximate strategy in electrical components. In the fronto−central region, early P2 (150–250 ms) and an N400-like wave (250–700 ms) were significantly different between different difficulty levels. Differences in P2 correlated with the difficulty of separation of the approximate strategy from the early physical stimulus discrimination process, which is dominant before 200 ms, and differences in the putative N400 correlated with different difficulties of approximate strategy execution. Moreover, this difference may be linked to speech processing. In addition, differences were found in the fronto-central region, which may reflect the regulatory role of this part of the cortex in approximate strategy execution when solving complex arithmetic problems.

Aging and the number sense: preserved basic non-symbolic numerical processing and enhanced basic symbolic processing

Aging often leads to general cognitive decline in domains such as memory and attention. The effect of aging on numerical cognition, particularly on foundational numerical skills known as the number sense, is not well-known. Early research focused on the effect of aging on arithmetic. Recent studies have begun to investigate the impact of healthy aging on basic numerical skills, but focused on non-symbolic quantity discrimination alone. Moreover, contradictory findings have emerged. The current study aimed to further investigate the impact of aging on basic non-symbolic and symbolic numerical skills. A group of 25 younger (18-25) and 25 older adults (60-77) participated in non-symbolic and symbolic numerical comparison tasks. Mathematical and spelling abilities were also measured. Results showed that aging had no effect on foundational non-symbolic numerical skills, as both groups performed similarly [RTs, accuracy and Weber fractions (w)]. All participants showed decreased non-symbolic acuity (accuracy and w) in trials requiring inhibition. However, aging appears to be associated with a greater decline in discrimination speed in such trials. Furthermore, aging seems to have a positive impact on mathematical ability and basic symbolic numerical processing, as older participants attained significantly higher mathematical achievement scores, and performed significantly better on the symbolic comparison task than younger participants. The findings suggest that aging and its lifetime exposure to numbers may lead to better mathematical achievement and stronger basic symbolic numerical skills. Our results further support the observation that basic non-symbolic numerical skills are resilient to aging, but that aging may exacerbate poorer performance on trials requiring inhibitory processes. These findings lend further support to the notion that preserved basic numerical skills in aging may reflect the preservation of an innate, primitive, and embedded number sense.

Efficiency of Arithmetic Procedures Modulates the Problem-Size Effect in Subtraction

The aim of this study was to examine whether differences in strategy selection and/or strategy efficiency can explain the modulation of the problem-size effect by arithmetic skill. More specifically, we wondered whether arithmetic skill increases the use of retrieval strategy in large problems, and/or enhances the efficiency of either retrieval or procedural strategies. The performance of highly-skilled (HS) and less highly-skilled (LS) individuals on a subtraction verification task was analyzed according to problem size and to the strategy reported on a trial-by-trial basis after each problem. The problem size effect was larger for LS individuals than for their HS peers, both in response time and in hit rate. Nevertheless, groups did not differ regarding the strategy reported for each subtraction size. As expected, problems in which retrieval strategy was reported were solved more quickly and more accurately than problems solved by procedural strategies. Responses using retrieval strategy were equally fast in the two groups, but HS individuals performed better than LS when using procedural strategies. The results therefore suggest that the differences in behavioral measures between groups might specifically be due to differences in the efficiency of procedural strategies.

Arithmetic split effect in complex subtractions: an event-related potential study

This study explores the relationship between the split effect and the use of exact versus approximate strategies in complex-subtraction calculations. One-hundred and two-digit subtraction problems were presented, with half of them being small-split problems with answers ±2 or ±5 from 50 and the other half being large-split problems with answers ±10 or ±15 from 50. Participants were asked to indicate whether the answer was less than 50. The measures were speed and accuracy of task performance, and high temporal resolution event-related potentials. Behavioral data showed that participants had a longer time requirement and a lower accuracy in solving small-split problems than in solving large-split problems. Event-related potential data show that, comparatively, the small-split problems led to more-negative, more-lateralized waves as early as 250 ms at frontal, frontocentral, and central sites. Our results, which are in agreement with previous studies, suggest that the participants used exact strategies to solve small-split problems and approximate strategies to solve large-split problems when performing complex subtractions. These results further our understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying the relationship between small/large-split effects and exact/approximate strategies in this task domain.

The influence of cardiorespiratory fitness on strategic, behavioral, and electrophysiological indices of arithmetic cognition in preadolescent children

The current study investigated the influence of cardiorespiratory fitness on arithmetic cognition in forty 9-10 year old children. Measures included a standardized mathematics achievement test to assess conceptual and computational knowledge, self-reported strategy selection, and an experimental arithmetic verification task (including small and large addition problems), which afforded the measurement of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). No differences in math achievement were observed as a function of fitness level, but all children performed better on math concepts relative to math computation. Higher fit children reported using retrieval more often to solve large arithmetic problems, relative to lower fit children. During the arithmetic verification task, higher fit children exhibited superior performance for large problems, as evidenced by greater d' scores, while all children exhibited decreased accuracy and longer reaction time for large relative to small problems, and incorrect relative to correct solutions. On the electrophysiological level, modulations of early (P1, N170) and late ERP components (P3, N400) were observed as a function of problem size and solution correctness. Higher fit children exhibited selective modulations for N170, P3, and N400 amplitude relative to lower fit children, suggesting that fitness influences symbolic encoding, attentional resource allocation and semantic processing during arithmetic tasks. The current study contributes to the fitness-cognition literature by demonstrating that the benefits of cardiorespiratory fitness extend to arithmetic cognition, which has important implications for the educational environment and the context of learning.

Mathematical anxiety effects on simple arithmetic processing efficiency: an event-related potential study

This study uses event-related brain potentials to investigate the difficulties that high math anxious individuals face when processing dramatically incorrect solutions to simple arithmetical problems. To this end, thirteen high math-anxious (HMA) and thirteen low math-anxious (LMA) individuals were presented with simple addition problems in a verification task. The proposed solution could be correct, incorrect but very close to the correct one (small-split), or dramatically incorrect (large-split). The two groups did not differ in mathematical ability or trait anxiety. We reproduced previous results for flawed scores suggesting HMA difficulties in processing large-split solutions. Moreover, large-split solutions elicited a late positive component (P600/P3b) which was more enhanced and delayed in the HMA group. Our study proposes that the pattern of flawed scores found by previous studies (and that we replicate) has to do with HMA individuals'difficulties in inhibiting an extended processing of irrelevant information (large-split solutions).

Health numeracy and cognitive decline in advanced age

The study aimed at investigating health numeracy in cognitively well performing healthy participants aged from 50 to 95 years as well as in participants with cognitive impairment, but no dementia (CIND). In cognitively well performing participants (n = 401), demographic variables and cognitive abilities (executive functions, reading comprehension, mental calculation, vocabulary) were associated with health numeracy. Older age, lower education, female gender as well as lower cognitive functions predicted low health numeracy. The effect of older age was partly mediated by executive functions and calculation abilities. Participants with CIND (n = 51) performed significantly lower than healthy controls in health numeracy. The findings suggest that cognitively well performing old individuals have difficulties in understanding health-related numerical information. The risk of misunderstanding health-related numerical information is increased in persons with CIND. As these population groups are frequently involved in health care decisions, particular attention has to be paid to providing numerical information in comprehensible form.

Processing false solutions in additions: differences between high- and lower-skilled arithmetic problem-solvers

This paper focuses on the capacity to solve numerical incongruities in high- and lower-skilled arithmetic problem-solvers by investigating event-related brain potentials elicited by incorrect solutions to additions. Fifteen high-skill and fifteen low-skill individuals were presented with simple addition problems in a verification task. The proposed solution was manipulated by presenting correct solutions and incorrect solutions very close to the correct ones. Incorrect solutions elicited a negative component followed by a late positive component (LPC/P3b), whose amplitude was smaller for the low-skill group than for the high-skill group. Because the LPC/P3b amplitude has been taken as an indicator of the plausibility of the stimulus, this result suggests that incorrect solutions close to the correct ones appear more plausible to low-skilled individuals than to their high-skilled counterparts. This result is interpreted in terms of differences in the strength of association between problems and potential solutions depending on arithmetical skill.

Cognitive Strategy Variations During Aging

The last two decades of research in cognitive aging have seen a shift from simply describing age-related changes in cognitive performance to determining the mechanisms underlying these changes. Recent findings on variations in the use of cognitive strategies during aging further our understanding of how these changes in performance occur during adulthood. Data show age-related differences in strategy repertoire, strategy distribution, strategy execution, and strategy selection. I illustrate these findings in cognitive domains as varied as episodic memory, working memory, reasoning, decision making, problem solving, and language. I discuss how strategic variations are best studied both conceptually and methodologically and how investigating strategic variations helps us make significant progress in the study of cognitive aging. As I also show in this article, whichever the cognitive domain being studied, there are no restrictions that would prevent us from adopting a strategy perspective.

Cognitive aging and adaptive foraging behavior

We conducted two experiments comparing younger and older adults' ability to adjust their foraging behavior as a function of task characteristics. Participants foraged for fish in a virtual landscape and had to decide when to move between ponds so as to maximize the number of fish caught. In the first experiment, participants were left to generate their own foraging strategy, whereas in the second experiment, participants were instructed to use an incremental strategy that has been shown to produce optimal performance in this task. Our results suggest that both younger and older adults are adaptive in the sense of adjusting the parameters of their foraging strategy as a function of task characteristics. Nevertheless, older adults show overall poorer performance compared with younger adults even when instructed to use an optimal strategy.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Choice/No-Choice Method in Research on Strategy Use

About 10 years ago, Siegler and Lemaire (1997 ) introduced the choice/no-choice method as a means of obtaining unbiased estimates of performance characteristics of cognitive strategies. They also illustrated the possibilities of this method and discussed its potential extensions for cognitive (developmental) research. The present article provides a critical discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the choice/no-choice method in research on strategy choice and strategy change, starting from an overview of the studies that have been done with this new method. We end with a general evaluation and some issues for further research.

Neural correlates of approximate quantification strategies in young and older adults: an fMRI study

Young and older adults assessed the approximate number of dots in collections including between 20 and 50 dots, with two strategies. The benchmark strategy is based on retrieving memory representations of quantities after visually scanning stimulus. The anchoring strategy involves both enumeration and estimation processes. Brain activations and performance were analyzed as a function of strategies, size of collections and age. Executing the benchmark strategy produced faster performance. It was associated with increased activity of a bilateral parieto/occipital and insular cortical network, including the postcentral gyrus, the cuneus, the middle occipital gyrus, and the insula. In addition to these bilateral activations, the benchmark strategy activated right prefrontal area. The anchoring strategy activated right superior parietal lobule, bilateral subcortical structures (putamen), and left dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex. The effects of aging on these cortical networks depended on strategies. These results suggest dissociation between two numerosity estimation strategies underlying different cognitive estimation processes and help to clarify age differences in numerosity estimation.

Assessing health numeracy among community-dwelling older adults

Quantitative information occupies a central role within health care decision making. Despite this, numeracy has attracted little research attention. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to (1) describe the health numeracy skill of a nonclinical, Canadian community-based senior population and (2) determine the relationship between health numeracy skill and prose health literacy, education, and math anxiety in this population. A convenience sample of 140 men and women, 50 + years, completed a questionnaire assessing demographic details, math anxiety, functional health literacy (Shortened Test of Functional Health Literacy for Adults STOFHLA), general context numeracy, and health context numeracy skills. Most participants had adequate functional health literacy (prose and numeracy) as measured by the STOFHLA, poorer general context numeracy skill, higher health context numeracy skill, and moderate math anxiety. Approximately 36% of the variation in general context numeracy scores and 26% of the variation in health context numeracy scores were explained by prose health literacy skill (STOFHLA), math anxiety, and attained education. This research offers an initial assessment of health numeracy skills as measured by three existing numeracy scales among a group of independently functioning older Canadian adults. This work highlights the need for clarification of the numeracy concept and refinement of health numeracy assessment instruments. Moreover, identifying patients' numeracy strengths and weaknesses will enable the development of focused numeracy interventions and may contribute to moving individuals further along the continuum of health literacy proficiency.

Eye movement correlates of younger and older adults' strategies for complex addition

This study examined performance measures and eye movements associated with complex arithmetic strategies in young and older adults. Participants added pairs of three-digit numbers using two different strategies, under choice and no-choice conditions. Older adults made more errors but were not significantly slower than young adults, and response times and errors showed no interaction between age and the number of carries. Older adults chose strategies less adaptively than young adults. Eye movements were consistent with use of required strategies on no-choice trials and reported strategies on choice trials. Eye movement data also suggested that young adults more successfully distinguished between strategies. Implications of these findings for understanding aging effects in complex arithmetic are discussed.

Brain activation in elderly people with and without dementia: Influences of gender and medication

Patients suffering from dementia show altered functional brain activation patterns especially in prefrontal brain regions, as research suggests. The present study follows three aims: to replicate these findings, to investigate treatment effects when administering galantamine, and to put gender differences in focus. We compared 12 patients with dementia to 12 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects regarding changes in haemoglobin concentration in brain tissue while performing a verbal fluency task (VFT). Concentration changes of oxygenated (O(2)Hb) and deoxygenated (HHb) haemoglobin were measured by multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), an easily applicable and non-invasive method of optical topography. In the patient group, measurement was repeated 4 and 8 weeks after starting treatment with galantamine. The results showed a reduced increase in O(2)Hb during task performance for patients compared to healthy controls. Furthermore, female subjects showed more pronounced activation in O(2)Hb as well as HHb compared to male subjects. Regarding treatment effects, no clear results could be obtained. In HHb, evidence for an entrainment effect was found. In the light of existing literature, the present study suggests an interaction of gender and age regarding brain activation patterns which should be aimed at in future investigations.

An event-related brain potential study of the arithmetic split effect

This study explores the split effect on arithmetical sequence processing using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). This effect has been reported in arithmetic problem verification tasks and refers to an increase in reaction time when an incorrect solution close to the correct one is presented. The use of different strategies has been suggested to account for this effect: a whole-calculation strategy for close incorrect solutions (small-split problems), and a plausibility-checking strategy for far or obviously incorrect solutions (large-split problems). In the present study, participants were asked to verify whether the last item of a numerical sequence was correct or not, according to the rule established by the preceding numbers. Subjects were presented with sequences of numbers, and the distance between the proposed and the correct ending was manipulated by presenting the correct ending, a small-split ending or a large-split ending. To avoid problems that violated the parity rule only even numbers were presented. Two ERP components were evident whenever the arithmetical sequence was broken: an early negativity peaking at about 270 ms and a subsequent late positivity component (LPC) peaking between 550 and 650 ms. The early negativity was larger at posterior sites. The late positivity had a centro-parietal scalp distribution, and its amplitude was sensitive to the numerical distance from the correct number: the greater the distance, the larger the positivity. The present results suggest that the centro-parietal LPC can be taken as an index of the split effect and may broaden our knowledge about arithmetical processing strategies.

Asymmetry in dopamine D(2/3) receptors of caudate nucleus is lost with age

Molecular and functional imaging techniques reveal evidence for lateralization of human cerebral function. Based on animal data, we hypothesized that asymmetry in dopamine neurotransmission declines during normal aging. In order to test this hypothesis, we measured dopamine D2/3 receptor availability with [18F]desmethoxyfallypride-PET (DMFP) in putamen and caudate nucleus (NC) of 21 healthy, right-handed males (24-60 years; 35+/-10). For volumetric analysis, high-resolution T1-weighted MR-images were obtained in 18 of the PET-subjects in order to assess possible age-related decreases in NC and putamen volume. The calculated DMFP binding potentials (BP) showed a right-ward asymmetry in NC of young subjects that decreased with age (r = 0.577, p = 0.006; Pearson correlation; two-tailed). An age-independent analysis showed a right-ward asymmetry in NC of the whole subject group (left: 1.49+/-0.35; right: 1.65+/-0.43 [mean+/-S.D.]; p = 0.020). No such side lateralization or age-effects could be found in the putamen. Volumes tended to be asymmetric in the putamen (right: 4.85+/-0.56 cm3; left: 4.64+/-0.86 cm3 [mean+/-S.D.]; p = 0.063), but not in NC. The decline of putamen volume during aging was significant in the right putamen (r = -0.613; p = 0.007; Pearson correlation; two-tailed). There were no other significant correlations between striatal volumes and age or BP. Because ventral striatal dopamine neurotransmission is involved in cognitive processes, this loss of physiological asymmetry in NC dopamine transmission during aging might be involved in age-related declines of cognitive performance.

Do working-memory executive components mediate the effects of age on strategy selection or on strategy execution? Insights from arithmetic problem solving

Younger and older adults performed an inequality verification task (7+6 < 15, Yes/No?) in a control condition and in a dual-task condition where they simultaneously performed an executive-component task. Arithmetic-problem characteristics were manipulated in order to test strategy selection (i.e., choice of appropriate strategies in order to improve performance) and strategy execution (i.e., performance of the cognitive processes involved in each strategy). Results revealed that strategy selection changes with age: Older adults mainly selected one type of strategies in contrast to younger adults who used several types of strategies. These age-related changes were similar in the control and dual-task conditions. Strategy execution also changed with age, as shown by larger age-related differences on hardest problems. These age-related changes were larger in the dual-task condition, compared to the control condition. This impact of executive components as mediator of age-related changes depended on general age-related slowing. We discuss these findings in order to further understand the effects of age on arithmetic performance.