The relationships among working memory, inhibitory control, and mathematical skills in primary school children: Analogical reasoning matters

IF 1.8 3区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Cognitive Development Pub Date : 2024-03-01 DOI:10.1016/j.cogdev.2024.101437

Yue Qi , Yinghe Chen , Xiao Yu , Xiujie Yang , Xinyi He , Xiaoyu Ma

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The current study examined the mediating role of analogical reasoning in the relationships among working memory, inhibitory control, and children’s mathematical skills. Two hundred fifty-one students from first to third grades were tested on visual-spatial working memory, verbal working memory, inhibitory control, analogical reasoning, and different mathematical skills (i.e., symbolic number processing and mathematical reasoning). After controlling for age and gender, analogical reasoning significantly contributed to both symbolic number processing and mathematical reasoning. The relationship between verbal working memory and symbolic number processing, as well as the relationship between verbal working memory and mathematical reasoning, were significantly mediated by analogical reasoning. The exploratory analyses further revealed that there was no significant age difference in the roles of analogical reasoning. These results highlight the important role of analogical reasoning in explaining the relationships among working memory, inhibitory control, and children’s different mathematical abilities. The findings also indicate that analogical reasoning, the ability of identifying and processing critical relational information, may be a potential avenue to improve children’s mathematical skills.

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小学生工作记忆、抑制控制和数学能力之间的关系：类比推理的重要性

本研究探讨了类比推理在工作记忆、抑制性控制和儿童数学技能之间关系中的中介作用。研究对 251 名一至三年级学生进行了视觉空间工作记忆、语言工作记忆、抑制控制、类比推理和不同数学技能（即符号数字处理和数学推理）的测试。在控制了年龄和性别之后，类比推理对符号数字处理和数学推理都有显著的促进作用。类比推理对言语工作记忆与符号数字处理之间的关系以及言语工作记忆与数学推理之间的关系有明显的中介作用。探索性分析进一步表明，在类比推理的作用方面没有明显的年龄差异。这些结果凸显了类比推理在解释工作记忆、抑制控制和儿童不同数学能力之间的关系方面所起的重要作用。研究结果还表明，类比推理是一种识别和处理关键关系信息的能力，可能是提高儿童数学能力的潜在途径。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Cognitive Development Multiple-

CiteScore

3.20

自引率

5.60%

发文量

114

期刊介绍： Cognitive Development contains the very best empirical and theoretical work on the development of perception, memory, language, concepts, thinking, problem solving, metacognition, and social cognition. Criteria for acceptance of articles will be: significance of the work to issues of current interest, substance of the argument, and clarity of expression. For purposes of publication in Cognitive Development, moral and social development will be considered part of cognitive development when they are related to the development of knowledge or thought processes.