The behavioral and neural correlates of arithmetic across the lifespan

• Applicant: Dr. Christina Artemenko
• Subject Area: Developmental and Educational Psychology ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 468460838

Arithmetic skills are amongst the most important skills that children learn in school. In our modern aging society, individuals must apply arithmetic skills in their daily life well into old age. Understanding the general and specific demands of arithmetic is therefore critical to support arithmetic learning in children, to foster mental arithmetic in adults, and to increase the quality of life for elderly.The mechanisms underlying arithmetic processing seem to change during development: With increasing age, the involvement of domain-general cognitive processes (e.g., working memory) for arithmetic decreases, while the involvement of domain-specific numerical processes (e.g., magnitude processing) for arithmetic increases. However, this developmental change is derived from studies in children, adolescents, and young adults, so it is unclear how this development progresses during aging.Behavioral and neuroimaging methods have been previously utilized in children and adults to study the mechanisms underlying arithmetic across the lifespan, but never before have they been used in conjunction to examine the development of arithmetic in the elderly. The current project addresses this issue, extends previous developmental research, and opens a new research field on the neurocognitive effects of aging on arithmetic processing.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Hans-Christoph Nürk