Frequency of finger looking during finger counting is related to children's working memory capacities |
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| Authors: | Anne-Françoise de Chambrier Catherine Thevenot Pierre Barrouillet Pascal Zesiger |
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| Institution: | 1. Special Needs Education Unit, University of Teacher Education from State of Vaud, Lausanne, Switzerland;2. Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland;3. Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland |
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| Abstract: | Finger counting can be useful in solving arithmetic problems, noticeably because it reduces the working memory demand of mental calculations. However, proprioceptive information might not be sufficient to keep track of the number of fingers raised during problem solving, and visual input may play an important role in this process. The present study was designed to address this question and shows that 8-year-old children look at their fingers in 60% of the trials during finger counting when solving additive problems. Moreover, our results reveal that the frequency of finger looking is negatively correlated with working memory capacities and is higher for more difficult problems. These findings suggest that finger looking is recruited in managing the cognitive demand of the arithmetic task, probably by providing additional external cues to monitor the number of steps that have to be incremented during finger counting. |
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| Keywords: | Numerical cognition mental arithmetic arithmetic strategies finger use working memory |
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