Biomedical subjects

M P Noël

Publications and source records attributed to M P Noël.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Involvement of short-term memory in complex mental calculation.

The aim of this study was to examine the involvement of the short-term memory system in complex mental addition by manipulating the phonological and visual similarity of two numbers to be added. The phonological similarity of the problems appeared to have a major effect on both speed and accuracy. However, the manipulation of visual similarity failed to have any measurable impact. This suggests that the phonological loop, rather than the visual-spatial sketch pad, would be used preferably for temporary storage of addends. An interpretation of these results in terms of the nature of the internal code underlying this task is discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

The Whorfian hypothesis and numerical cognition: is 'twenty-four' processed in the same way as 'four-and-twenty'?

Recent theoretical developments have redefined a Whorfian effect as a processing difference due to the language of the individual, and no longer as a marker for or against linguistic determinism. Within this framework. Whorfian effects can be used to investigate whether a particular part of the cognitive system is penetrable by language processes or forms an encapsulated module, provided the experimenter ensures that the target language difference is not caused by peripheral input or output processes. In this article, we examine the possibility of a Whorfian effect in numerical cognition by making use of the fact that in the Dutch number naming system the order of tens and units is reversed (i.e. 24 is read 'four-and-twenty'). In a first experiment, we asked native French- and Dutch-speaking students to name the solution of addition problems with a two-digit and a single-digit operand (e.g. 20 + 4 =?, 24 + 1 =?). The order of the operands was manipulated (20 + 4 vs. 4 + 20) as well as the presentation modality (Arabic vs. verbal). Three language differences emerged from this study. Experiment 2, however, showed that these differences were all due to input or output processes rather than differences in the addition operation (i.e. the differences between Dutch and French disappeared when subjects were asked to type the answer rather than pronounce it). On the basis of these findings, we question the idea that mathematical operations are based on verbal processes.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

About the influence of the presentation format on arithmetical-fact retrieval processes.

This article presents the results of two experiments. In Experiment 1, French-speaking participants were asked first to retrieve the product of two numbers presented in Arabic or verbal code, and then to perform a number-matching task on the same material to assess the encoding time difference between numerals in the two formats. Experiment 2 involved the same multiplication task with Dutch-speaking participants who name two-digit numbers in reverse order. The format effects obtained by Campbell and Clark (1992); Campbell (1994) for multiplication were replicated. However, several observations suggest that some of these effects may be due to encoding time differences between word and digit numerals. The same size-by-format interaction was found for the number-matching task as for the multiplication task, and the effect disappeared with practice in the multiplication task. Finally, despite the fact that the linguistic structure of number names differs between French and Dutch, the types of error produced in both groups were identical. The last result does not match with the hypothesis that operand intrusion errors are due to interference between reading processes and arithmetical-fact retrieval processes. Implications of these findings for the debate about the nature of arithmetical-fact retrieval are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1995

Lexicalization errors in writing arabic numerals: a single-case study.

This paper presents a single-case study of a patient suffering from several impairments in number processing. The main focus of the paper is to describe and interpret the patient's errors in verbal to arabic transcoding. The errors were of the syntactical type and consisted of partial lexicalizations appearing mainly in response to items with Thousand in sum relationships and less frequently with Hundred in sum relationships. The Discussion section compares three models in their ability to account for the patient's dissociation. It was suggested that models such as that of McCloskey, Caramazza, and Basili (1985), postulating a semantic representation for numbers built up on a base-ten system, are unable to account for the patient's errors. By contrast, Power et al.'s perspective (Power & Longuet-Higgins, 1978; Power & Dal Martello, 1990), which posits a semantic representation of numbers reflecting the structure of the verbal numeral system, could provide an economical interpretation for the dissociation observed between the mastery of sum and product relationships. Similarly, the asemantic transcoding model developed by Deloche and Seron (1987) gives a valid account for the patient's profile.

Aged↗

PubMed1992

Images of numbers, or "When 98 is upper left and 6 sky blue".

Some people declare that they possess a personal visual representation of numbers: some automatically "see" the numbers they are confronted with in a precise location in a structured mental space, others "associate" specific colours with given numbers. Such visuo-spatial representations of numbers were first described by Galton in 1880 but have since received little attention from psychologists. It is the aim of this article to describe these mental representations and discuss their role in number processing. The authors first review Galton's observations, and then present their own. Finally, they discuss the relevance of these visuo-spatial representations in relation to contemporary debates on number representation and calculation.

Adult↗