The influence of macronutrients on cognitive performance : effects across age and task difficulty : thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

The effects of pure glucose, protein, and fat ingestion on tasks of paragraph recall, word recall, and mental arithmetic were examined. These effects were also investigated with regard to the age of the participant and the task difficulty level. Twelve young and twelve older adults participated in the study. Over four separate morning sessions, participants ingested one of the four drinks (glucose, protein, fat, or placebo), and completed easy and hard versions of the paragraph recall word recall, and mental arithmetic tasks. The between-group factor was Age of the participant (young or older adult). The within-group factors were type of Nutrient ingested (glucose, protein, fat, or placebo), and Difficulty Level (easy or hard). No effects of Nutrient were found in regard to overall task performance, collapsing across Age and Difficulty Level. There was no effect of Nutrient on the different performance levels of both age groups, or for the two task difficulty levels. However, post-hoc analyses did reveal a significant Nutrient x Age interaction for the elderly after ingestion of the protein drink. Trends in the data also pointed towards an enhancement effect of glucose for the paragraph recall and mental arithmetic tasks. Trends associated with performance levels after fat ingestion showed that fat tended to enhance mental arithmetic accuracy performance for the older adult age group. Protein did not appear to differ from placebo on any of the tasks, with the exception of the deficit in performance seen with the elderly on the mental arithmetic accuracy task. In addition, a post-hoc analysis of the effects of Nutrient on mood-state showed a significant Nutrient x Mood x Time interaction. These results were discussed in light of task-specific effects of nutrients and nutrient metabolism

Symptoms of anxiety and depression are related to cardiovascular responses to active, but not passive, coping tasks

Objective: Anxiety and depression have been linked to blunted blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) reactions to mental stress tests; however, most studies have not included indices of underlying hemodynamics nor multiple stress tasks. This study sought to examine the relationships of anxiety and depression with hemodynamic responses to acute active and passive coping tasks. Methods: A total of 104 participants completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scales and mental arithmetic, speech, and cold pressor tasks while BP, HR, total peripheral resistance, and cardiac output (CO) were assessed. Results: After adjustment for traditional risk factors and baseline cardiovascular activity, depression scores were negatively associated with systolic BP, HR, and CO responses to the mental arithmetic task, while anxiety scores were inversely related to the systolic BP response to mental arithmetic. Conclusion: High anxiety or depression scores appear to be associated with blunted cardiac reactions to mental arithmetic (an active coping task), but not to the cold pressor test or speech tasks. Future research should further examine potential mechanisms and longitudinal pathways relating depression and anxiety to cardiovascular reactivity

Effects of stress

Complex cognitive tasks such as mental arithmetic heavily rely on intact, well-coordinated prefrontal cortex (PFC) function. Converging evidence suggests that frontal midline theta (FMT) oscillations play an important role during the execution of such PFC-dependent tasks. Additionally, it is well- established that acute stress impairs PFC function, and recent evidence suggests that FMT is decreased under stress. In this EEG study, we investigated FMT oscillations during a mental arithmetic task that was carried out in a stressful and a neutral control condition. Our results show late- onset, sustained FMT increases during mental arithmetic. In the neutral condition FMT started to increase earlier than in the stress condition. Direct comparison of the conditions quantified this difference by showing stronger FMT increases in the neutral condition in an early time window. Between- subject correlation analysis showed that attenuated FMT under stress was related to slowed reaction times. Our results suggest that FMT is associated with stimulus independent mental processes during the natural and complex PFC- dependent task of mental arithmetic, and is a possible marker for intact PFC function that is disrupted under stress

Speed++TM: A New Pencil Puzzle for Mental Arithmetic

A new pencil puzzle, Speed++TM, was developed by combining and adapting the ideas of two popular Japanese pencil puzzles i.e. Kakuro and Numberlink. The novel characteristics of Speed++TM and its advantages are then compared to traditionally composed mental arithmetic questions used in practice and competitions by mental arithmetic associations. In particular, the new puzzles have a dynamic structure which in effect tests visual-spatial skills, memory, and concentration. The puzzles also look more appealing and are easy to produce through computer implemented algorithms. We further describe the potential of this puzzle as a more vibrant mental arithmetic challenge for mental arithmeticians and its viability for educational use in schools and brain training programs similar to Prof. Kawashima’s world famous brain training program

Mental Comparison of Students Learning Abacus-Arithmetic and Not Learning Abacus-Arithmetic on Mathematics Material

Students' mental mastery in elementary school mathematics lessons in Indonesia is weak, slow, inaccurate, and declining. Mastery problems among elementary school students who have studied mental abacus arithmetic were found to be low. This is an urgent matter to research because there is a gap between theory, expectations, and reality. The purpose of this research was to compare the ability to solve mathematical problems between students who studied abacus mental arithmetic and students who did not study abacus mental arithmetic. This research involved 70 students. Data collection techniques using instruments, the instruments used were the first-semester mathematics exam and mental arithmetic exam. Data analysis techniques using SPSS Version 25.0 statistics, namely the t-test, were used to compare the ability to solve mathematical problems between students who studied mental abacus-arithmetic and students who did not study mental abacus-arithmetic. Pearson correlation was used to determine the relationship between students' mental arithmetic learning achievement and their ability to solve mathematical problems. The results of the research showed that there was a significant difference (p<0.05) in learning achievement on symbolic mathematics questions and mental arithmetic achievement between students who studied mental abacus calculation and students who did not study mental abacus calculation. The minimum score of the group that studied mental abacus calculation was higher compared to the group that did not study mental abacus calculation. However, there was no significant difference (p<0.05) in mathematics learning achievement between students who studied mental abacus-arithmetic and students who did not study mental abacus-arithmetic.

The Modality Factor In Two Approaches Of Abacus-Based Calculation And Its Effects On Mental Arithmetic And School Mathematics Achievements [QA107.2. K49 2007 f rb].

Aritmetik mental dalam bentuk Abakus Aritmetik Mental(AMA), telah muncul semula kepentingannya dalam pembelajaran matematik khususnya untuk kanak-kanak awal di Malaysia. Mental arithmetic, in the form of Abacus Mental Arithmetic (AMA), has reemerged in its importance to mathematics learning especially for young children in Malaysia. It was introduced by the government in its effort to rectify the present weakness in Mathematics curriculum and also imbalances in its achievements among the three primary school streams

How performing a mental arithmetic task modify the regulation of centre of foot pressure displacements during bipedal quiet standing.

We investigated the effect of performing a mental arithmetic task with two levels of difficulty on the regulation of centre of foot pressure (COP) displacements during bipedal quiet standing in young healthy individuals. There was also a control condition in which no concurrent task was required. A space-time-domain analysis showed decreased COP displacements, along the antero-posterior axis, when participants concurrently performed the most difficult mental arithmetic task. Frequency-domain and stabilogram-diffusion analyses further suggested these decreased COP displacements to be associated with an increased stiffness and a reduction of the exploratory behaviours in the short term, respectively

Multivariate Pattern Analysis of Entropy estimates in Fast- and Slow-Wave Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy: A Preliminary Cognitive Stress study

Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a modality that can measure shallow cortical brain signals and also contains pulsatile oscillations that originate from heartbeat dynamics. In particular, while fNIRS slow waves (0 Hz to 0.6 Hz) refer to the standard hemodynamic signal, fast-wave (0.8 Hz to 3 Hz) fNIRS signals refer to cardiac oscillations. Using a cognitive stress experiment paradigm with mental arithmetic, the aim of this study was to assess differences in cortical activity when using slow-wave or fast-wave fNIRS signals. Furthermore, we aimed to see whether fNIRS fast and slow waves provide different information to discriminate mental arithmetic tasks from baseline. We used data from 10 healthy subjects from an open dataset performing mental arithmetic tasks and assessed fNIRS signals using mean values in the time domain, as well as complexity estimates including sample, fuzzy, and distribution entropy. A searchlight representational similarity analysis with pairwise t-test group analysis was performed to compare the representational dissimilarity matrices of each searchlight center. We found significant representational differences between fNIRS fast and slow waves for all complexity estimates, at different brain regions. On the other hand, no statistical differences were observed for mean values. We conclude that entropy analysis of fNIRS data may be more sensitive than traditional methods like mean analysis at detecting the additional information provided by fast-wave signals for discriminating mental arithmetic tasks and warrants further research

'They don't use their brains what a pity': school mathematics through the eyes of the older generation

The paper considers issues in the teaching of mathematics from the viewpoint of a group of people aged 75 and over. Drawing on written accounts of their use of and attitude to mathematics, extracts are identified in which they reflect on their own experiences of learning mathematics at school or give their views on more recent mathematics education. Common themes are mental arithmetic and the use of calculators. Most respondents report positive assessments of their own mathematics education and reservations about more recent systems. Some accounts display inaccurate views of current practices in mathematics teaching and possible reasons for this are considered

Do calendrical savants use calculation to answer date questions? : a functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Calendrical savants can name the weekdays for dates from different years with remarkable speed and accuracy. Whether calculation rather than just memory is involved is disputed. Grounds for doubting whether they can calculate are reviewed and criteria for attributing date calculation skills to them are discussed. At least some calendrical savants possess date calculation skills. A behavioural characteristic observed in many calendrical savants is increased response time for questions about more remote years. This may be because more remote years require more calculation or because closer years are more practised. An experiment is reported that used functional magnetic resonance imaging to attempt to discriminate between these explanations. Only two savants could be scanned and excessive head movement corrupted one savant's mental arithmetic data. Nevertheless, there was increased parietal activation during both mental arithmetic and date questions and this region showed increased activity with more remote dates. These results suggest that the calendrical skills observed in savants result from intensive practice with calculations used in solving mental arithmetic problems. The mystery is not how they solve these problems, but why