The Relationship Among The SNARC Effect, Working Memory And Inhibitory Control For Children Aged 8-11

The numerical representation (Brusbaert,2005), that is the process of processing, understanding, expression and application for numbers in our daily life. The numerical representation is the vital component of numerical cognitive ability. Researchers often take the SNARC effect as the indicator of numerical spatial representation. The SNARC effect, also called Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes effect, which means left hand respect quicker to small number and right hand respect quicker to big number (Dehaene, Bossini, & Giraux,1993). Most previous studies focused on the cognitive mechanism of the SNARC effect itself. In this study, we choose the school-age children as the subjects, and concerned on the relationship between the SNARC effect and other general cognitive ability from the developmental perspective. In the Study 1, we explore the developmental tendency of numerical spatial representation, working memory, and inhibitory control through simple tasks which only single cognitive involved. In the study 2, we explore those abilities relationship in one complex task.In study 1, we explore the relationship among numerical space representation with working memory and inhibitory control, through individuals performance in single cognitive tasks. The subjects include 90 students in grade 2, grade 3 and grade 4. The study test children’s working memory, inhibitory control, and numerical space representation in spatial path and verbal path. Those tasks include:3-Back refresh task, digital span task, Stop Signal task, Stroop color-word task, SNARC magnitude comparison task, SNARC parity classification task. The results shown:children have not shown significant SNARC effect until 9 years old. In the developmental procession, the SNARC effect in spatial path and verbal path depends on different cognitive mechanism. At the age of 10, children’s numerical space representation has developed maturity, the SNARC effect in spatial path highly significant correlated with the SNARC effect in verbal path. In addition, children’s SNARC effects in different ages have different developmental relationship with different cognitive components. The cognitive components shown close relationship in spatial path rather than the verbal one. At the age of 8, in spatial path, SNARC effect has a significant positive correlation with inhibition control. At the age of 9, also in spatial path, SNARC effect has a significant negative correlation with working memory. At the age of 10, the developed SNARC effect has a significant negative correlation with verbal inhibitory control.In study 2, we explore the numerical space representation, working memory, and inhibitory control’s interaction in one task. Since the difficulty of the task for young children, we choose 90 students in grade 3, grade 4, and grade 5 as subjects. We use three-phase paradigm in SNARC study. In coding phase, subjects need memorize the numerical order. In classified phase, task requests same as the magnitude comparison task, oriented with the GNG paradigm. In judging phase, participants should have the right choice for the numerical order. The results shown:At the age of 9, the cognitive mechanism not developed maturely. The task is difficult for them, and those capacity indexes are not significant. At the age of 10, the SNARC effect is mature. The limited working memory, the poor inhibitory control, induced the insignificant order effect. At the age of 11, the working memory is mature, the inhibitory control is powerful, so that children showed the SNARC effect and the order effect at the same time in the GNG paradigm.These studies found that:children in 9 years old have apparently SNARC effect. Child in 10 years has already relatively mature numerical space representation. During the school-ages, the relationship among numerical space representation, working memory and inhibitory control are developed. When multi-cognitive asked, the development of inhibitory cognitive impact children’s performance in tasks. Specifically, when the ability of inhibitory control was increased, there are SNARC effect and order effect in the complex task, or there only have the SNARC effect, without the significant order effect.