AUTHOR=Imbo Ineke , Vandierendonck André , Fias Wim 

TITLE=Passive Hand Movements Disrupt Adults’ Counting Strategies

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=volume 2 - 2011

YEAR=2011

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00201

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00201

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=In the present study, we experimentally tested the role of hand motor circuits in simple-arithmetic strategies. Educated adults solved simple additions (e.g., 8+3) or simple subtractions (e.g., 11–3) while they were required to retrieve the answer from long-term memory (e.g., knowing that 8+3 = 11), to transform the problem by making an intermediate step (e.g., 8+3 = 8+2+1 = 10+1 = 11) or to count one-by-one (e.g., 8+3 = 8…9…10…11). During the process of solving the arithmetic problems, the experimenter did or did not move the participants’ hand on a 4-point matrix. The results show that passive hand movements disrupted the counting strategy while leaving the other strategies unaffected. This pattern of results is in agreement with a procedural account, showing that the involvement of hand motor circuits in adults’ mathematical abilities is reminiscent of finger counting during childhood.