Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: Sofía Ortiz | email: sofiaortiz628@gmail.com
Sofía Ortiz 1°, Florencia Prendivoj 1°, Facundo Burgos 1°, Sofía Donner 1°, Sebastian Gandelman 1°, Guido Caruso 1°, Jesica Formoso 1°2°
1° Instituto de Investigaciones, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Buenos Aires
2° Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
It has been proposed that mental arithmetic induces attentional shifts towards the right (addition) or left (subtraction) visual fields. However, the findings are contradictory. The aim of this work is to assess this attentional bias using the dual-task paradigm. 32 participants performed a verification task of arithmetic operations presented sequentially on a screen. Between the second operand and the result, the participant had to detect a stimulus presented on the left or right side of the screen. For each trial, we registered response time (RT) and accuracy for the detection task and whether the operation was solved correctly. We fitted a mixed model with TR as the dependent variable, operation, stimulus location, and stimulus onset time (SOA) as independent variables. Results show that RTs were higher when the participant was performing a subtraction instead of an addition (p < .01). Additionally, lower SOA was associated with higher RTs (p < .01). The stimuli location and the interaction between this and the operation type showed no significant effect on RTs. Although the results suggest an interference effect of the operation on the detection of the stimulus, the evidence obtained does not support the hypothesis of attentional shifts induced by mental arithmetic.