Differential influences of visuospatial and phonological resources on mental arithmetic

Separate but related cognitive processes are hypothesized to influence different arithmetic operations. Working memory has been compartmentalized into a number of different sub-processes, such as phonological memory and visuospatial memory that are believed to have unique contributions to the performance of two distinct arithmetic operations: multiplication and subtraction. Influential work had initially produced these effects, but subsequent experiments have yielded inconsistent results. Because the reasons for these inconsistencies are not immediately apparent, the current study aims to systematically review these subsequent attempts and propose an experimental design to investigate a differential effect between working memory processes and arithmetic operation. This report will attempt to replicate this effect using tasks developed from prior work and perform analyses across a number of different subsamples. Details for predictions, methods, and analytic plans are described further below. This is a Registered Report Stage 1 Manuscript submitted to the Journal of Numerical Cognition. Date of in-principal acceptance: 2021-05-28. peerReviewed other