Identifying strategies in arithmetic with the operand recognition paradigm: a matter of switch cost?

Determining adults' and children's strategies in mental arithmetic constitutes a central issue in the domain of numerical cognition. However, despite the considerable amount of research on this topic, the conclusions in the literature are not always coherent. Therefore, there is a need to carry on the investigation, and this is the reason why we developed the operand recognition paradigm (ORP).

Numerical abilities in children with congenital hemiplegia: an investigation of the role of finger use in number processing.

In this study, we assessed basic and more complex non-symbolic and symbolic numerical task abilities in children with hemiplegia and obtained a detailed picture of their strengths and weaknesses in the numerical domain. Those children, who experience difficulties in finger gnosia and spontaneous use of fingers in counting, exhibit difficulties in finger pattern recognition and symbolic numerical tasks. However, their non-symbolic numerical abilities and arithmetic skills are preserved.

The use of the operand-recognition paradigm for the study of mental addition in older adults.

Objectives: Determining how individuals solve arithmetic problems is crucial for our understanding of human cognitive architecture. Elderly adults are supposed to use memory retrieval more often than younger ones. However, they might backup their retrieval by reconstructive strategies.