Brain Mechanism Differences Between Approximate And Exact Arithmetic

Arithmetic,which can be divided into approximate and exact,is an important ability in daily life.Approximate and exact arithmetic is different.As to developmental dimension,approximate arithmetic develops earlier than exact arithmetic and it is influenced by education more weakly than exact arithmetic.As to Evolutional dimension,approximate arithmetic is more original and underlying than exact arithmetic and no-human animals have approximate arithmetic ability.Compared with exact arithmetic,approximate arithmetic is correlated with spatial ability stronger.Exact arithmetic is related more with linguistic ability.However,approximate arithmetic relies more on spatial ability and exact arithmetic relies more on linguistic ability are hypotheses.Our study aimed at verifying the different brain mechanism they rely on by functional magnetic resonance imaging.Thirty-four college students attended our study,tested with approximate arithmetic,exact arithmetic,spatial and verbal tasks which consisted of two difficulties.Brain areas activation,tasks,accuracies and reaction time would be recorded.We compared the different activation between approximate and exact arithmetic,bilateral medial frontal gyrus,middle frontal gyrus,inferior frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal lobule showed greater activation in approximate arithmetic.Bilateral superior temporal gyrus,right parietal lobule,right superior frontal gyrus acted stronger in exact arithmetic.In spatial regions of interest,which localized by spatial task minus verbal task,approximate arithmetic were more active than exact arithmetic and activation improved by arithmetic difficulties.Approximate arithmetic relies more on spatial ability than exact arithmetic and arithmetic difficulties influence the underlying mechanism.