| Numbers are pervasive in everywhere,including many research fields(technology,economics,sports,education,etc.)and daily life.Numerical cognition not only refers to basic arithmetic skill,but also ability of math learning.Studies have made significant progress on the numerical processing for nearly 20 years,and reveals many phenomena of numerical cognition,such as the distance effect,and its internal mechanisms,developments and so on.Price is one of the most common forms of numbers in daily life.A large number of studies have shown that price judgment is an important factor influencing consumers' buying decisions.For the processes of buying decision,studies mainly focus on price perception and purchase preference.Investigations of the mechanism during price judgment are relatively few.Cognitive psychology holds that the narrow sense of price perception includes the processes of price representation and comparison.As a common form of numbers,price contains numerical information.Based on the direction of numerical cognition,this study regarded price cognition as an expansion of numerical cognition,considered price was a situational kind of numerical cognition,and investigated the cognition and processes of price from the perspective of numerical cognition.Consequently,the processing during price cognition(memory,estimation,comparison,etc)is similar to numerical cognition.In numerical cognition,individual characteristics(arithmetic ability),emotions(math anxiety)and environmental factors affect the individuals' numerical processing and cognitive processes.A small number of studies have found that math anxiety affecting numerical processing also had an impact on consumers' price judgments.There are also a few studies that investigate the role of mathematical skills in decision-making tasks.This study hypothesized that math anxiety and arithmetic skills that affected numerical cognition also have an effect on price perception.However,the relationship between math anxiety and arithmetic skill did not achieve a consistent result.Based on this,the current study firstly explored the relationship between math anxiety and arithmetic skill from the perspective of numerical cognition.The investigation of the relationship could contribute to explain their impacts on numerical cognition.Secondly,Using questionnaires,four groups of different levels of math anxiety and arithmetic skill were selected,and two situations,the pure digital and price situations,were set up.The comparison task or verification task was combined with the "SHOP" task.Through the behavioral(reaction time,correct rate and flowed scores)and ERP indicators(peak amplitude and latency),this study investigated the potential effects of arithmetic skills and math anxiety on individual price perception in detail,and revealed the differences of numerical cognition in different situations.Results showed that:(1)Math anxiety and arithmetic skill had a marginally significant or significant negative correlation,and the relationship of the two regions in 20%and 80%was not different inherently.(2)No matter correct rate,reaction time or flowed score,there was no significant difference between the four groups in the pure digital comparison and price comparison task,indicating that arithmetic skill and math anxiety had no effect or significant effect on individuals' processes of simple comparison task.(3)In the pure digital calculation and price calculation tasks,there was a significant difference between high-anxiety&high-skilled individuals and high-anxiety&low-skilled individuals,or low-anxiety&low-skilled individuals and high-anxiety&low-skilled individuals.But difference mainly existed between high-anxiety&high-skilled individuals and high-anxiety&low-skilled individuals.High-anxiety&high-skilled individuals behaved better than high-anxiety&low-skilled individuals,regardless of correct rate,reaction time or flowed score.This suggested that both arithmetic skill and math anxiety had an effect on the complex verification task for different levels of math anxiety and arithmetic skill individuals,and arithmetic skills mainly affected the performance of high anxiety individuals.(4)ERP research results indicated that both in comparison and calculation tasks,performance of four groups were different in peak amplitudes and latency of P1,P2,N170 and P3b,specifically:a.In the comparison task,all four groups of subjects induced significant P1(100?150ms)and P2(150?250ms).However,there was a significant difference between high-anxiety&high-skilled individuals and high-anxiety&low-skilled individuals and low-anxiety&high-skilled individuals,or low-anxiety&low-skilled individuals and high-anxiety&low-skilled individuals in peak amplitudes and latency.b.In the calculation task,the four groups of subjects induced significant PI(100?150ms),P2(150?250ms)and P3b(250?500ms).However,there was no significant difference in P3b between the four groups in the pure digital calculation task,but significant in the price calculation task.There were significant differences in peak amplitude and latency between high-anxiety&high-skilled individuals and high-anxiety&low-skilled individuals and low-anxiety&high-skilled individuals.There was also a significant difference between low-anxiety&low skilled individuals and high-anxiety&low-skilled individuals in peak amplitude and latency.But these differences were mainly in the high-anxiety&high-skilled individuals and low-anxiety&high-skilled individuals.For individuals with different math anxiety and arithmetic skill,this suggested that math anxiety had a positive effect on the cognitive processes of high-skilled individuals.In conclusion,the results of this study showed that,there was a significant negative correlation between arithmetic skill and math anxiety.Both in the 20%and 80%regions,there was no difference in the relationship of the two.No matter the simple comparison task or the complex verification task,the performance of high-anxiety&high-skilled individuals was better than that of high-anxiety&low-skilled individuals.This indicated that arithmetic skill could enhance the performance of high-anxiety individuals.Group differences were also found in the early components of ERP(PI,N170 and P2)in the pure digital comparison and price comparison tasks.The difference occurred in the early components of the ERP for the purely computational task,but in the late components for the price calculation task.Different levels of arithmetic skill and math anxiety affected the individuals' process of numerical cognition.Math anxiety had a positive impact on the high-skill individuals' numerical processing,and could promote the high-skill individuals'numerical processes. |
PDF Full Text Request