Causal role of spatial attention in arithmetic problem solving: Evidence from left unilateral neglect

Recent behavioural and brain imaging studies have provided evidence for rightward and leftward attention shifts while solving addition and subtraction problems respectively, suggesting that mental arithmetic makes use of mechanisms akin to those underlying spatial attention. However, this hypothesis...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuropsychologia 2014-07, Vol.60, p.1-9
Main Authors: Dormal, Valérie, Schuller, Anne-Marie, Nihoul, Julie, Pesenti, Mauro, Andres, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Aged
Arithmetic
Attention
Attention - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Brain - pathology
Disorders of higher nervous function. Focal brain diseases. Central vestibular syndrome and deafness. Brain stem syndromes
Female
Functional Laterality - physiology
Humans
Male
Mathematics
Medical sciences
Mental number line
Middle Aged
Neglect
Nervous system (semeiology, syndromes)
Neurology
Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology
Perceptual Disorders - physiopathology
Problem Solving - physiology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Space
Space Perception - physiology
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Summary:Recent behavioural and brain imaging studies have provided evidence for rightward and leftward attention shifts while solving addition and subtraction problems respectively, suggesting that mental arithmetic makes use of mechanisms akin to those underlying spatial attention. However, this hypothesis mainly relies on correlative data and the causal relevance of spatial attention for mental arithmetic remains unclear. In order to test whether the mechanisms underlying spatial attention are necessary to perform arithmetic operations, we compared the performance of right brain-lesioned patients, with and without left unilateral neglect, and healthy controls in addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers. We predicted that patients with left unilateral neglect would be selectively impaired in the subtraction task while being unimpaired in the addition task. The results showed that neglect patients made more errors than the two other groups to subtract large numbers, whereas they were still able to solve large addition problems matched for difficulty and magnitude of the answer. This finding demonstrates a causal relationship between the ability to attend the left side of space and the solving of large subtraction problems. A plausible account is that attention shifts help localizing the position of the answer on a spatial continuum while subtracting large numbers. •Visuospatial attention shares common mechanisms with mental arithmetic.•Arithmetic abilities were tested using addition and subtraction problems.•Patients with or without left neglect were compared to healthy controls.•Neglect patients made more errors in subtraction problems with a large 2nd operand.•Mechanisms underlying attention orientation play an essential role in arithmetic.
ISSN:0028-3932
1873-3514
DOI:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.05.007