Representation of Multiplication Facts-Evidence for partial verbal coding

Abstract

Background: The current view in numerical cognition research is that multiplication facts are stored and retrieved in a phonological code. Consistent with this view, it was found that multiplication could be impaired by a phonological but not by a visuo-spatial loading task. However, because the authors used an active production task, it remained unclear whether concurrent articulation impaired either access to multiplication facts or their retrieval.Methods: In the current study, we investigated the influence of concurrent articulation on multiplication fact knowledge without active production of multiplication results.Results: In a number bisection task, number triplets, which are part of a multiplication table, were classified faster as being correctly bisected than other triplets. Interestingly, concurrent articulation led to a relative slowing of the multiplicative triplets which reduced the multiplicativity effect.Conclusions: This result indicates that concurrent articulation modulates access to phonologically stored multiplication facts and corroborates the notion of multiplication facts being represented in an at least partially verbal code. © 2011 Moeller et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.