He visto que con este programa esta calificado como los mejores a nivel mundial en competencia de matematicas los chicos que toman este programa han ganado primer lugar! Taken together, our review of the existing literature suggests that AMC training has the potential to enhance various cognitive skills including mathematics, working memory and numerical magnitude processing. doi: 10.1177/1745691616635612, Mellet, E., Tzourio, N., Crivello, F., Joliot, M., Denis, M., and Mazoyer, B. Es lo maximo super recomendable! The AMC group received 34 weeks of AMC training while the control group received no training. Child Psychol. We believe that when children are engaged, learning is fostered. Some of the neural changes can explain the training-induced cognitive enhancements. 1021, 7785. (A) A physical abacus that has not been operated. Given that AMC involves continuously updating of intermediate imaginary beads (Frank and Barner, 2012), AMC training may facilitate the memory updating ability. Several studies confirmed this hypothesis. 29, 13181324. 32 Articles, This article is part of the Research Topic, Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), Institute of Brain Science and Department of Psychology, School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China. Although several AMC studies have utilized active control groups in which participants were engaged in similar amounts of additional standard math curriculum and found beneficial effects of AMC training in boosting cognitive functions, we do not know whether AMC training shows advantages when compared to other cognitive training programs. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00716.x, Joensen, J. S., and Nielsen, H. S. (2009). Functional anatomy of spatial mental imagery generated from verbal instructions. 26, 515520. B., Benson, R. R., Kwong, K. K., Jiang, H., Kennedy, W. A., et al. J. Hum. doi: 10.1007/s00426-013-0535-3. Curr. However, it remains unclear whether this beneficial effect could go beyond a placebo effect due to the lack of a comparable active control group. Does your child need a boost of confidence in math? Moreover, the advantage in letter forward spans has been replicated in two recent longitudinal studies examining the effects of 20-days AMC training on young adults (Dong et al., 2016; Zhou et al., 2020). 5, 471482. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.23.6.832, Hatano, G., Miyake, Y., and Binks, M. G. (1977). Given that the frontal-parietal and occipital-temporal brain regions have been consistently reported to be activated by AMC tasks (Hanakawa et al., 2003; Chen et al., 2006; Ku et al., 2012; Zhou et al., 2019), AMC training may lead to near transfer effects to other cognitive tasks by impacting these brain regions. Negative evidence from chess, music, and working memory training. Science 320, 15101512. Moreover, activity of the fusiform gyrus was significantly correlated with the size of numerals involved in AMC operations. This promotes rapid, balanced, whole brain development, and fast mental math skills. Despite the few studies that investigated neural effects of AMC training, the findings indicate that AMC training produces functional and structural changes in the brain that are largely located in the frontal-parietal and occipital-temporal regions. However, if one wishes to demonstrate the effectiveness of cognitive training on a cognitive ability, it is not enough to show enhancements on a single task measure. Furthermore, several other factors such as gender (Neubauer et al., 2010; Rojiani et al., 2017) and pre-existing individual differences (Bellander et al., 2011; Studer-Luethi et al., 2012) have been also identified as critical mediators for behavioral or neural effects of many cognitive interventions. Recently, an increasing number of psychological studies have investigated the potential cognitive benefits of AMC training, suggesting that AMC training may be a promising tool in promoting cognition (Stigler, 1984; Miller and Stigler, 1991; Hanakawa et al., 2003; Chen et al., 2006; Lee et al., 2007; Ku et al., 2012; Tanaka et al., 2012; Yao et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2015, 2019; Weng et al., 2017; Zhou et al., 2019). Received: 16 March 2020; Accepted: 06 August 2020;Published: 02 September 2020. Similarly, they found that AMC experts activated the bilateral frontal-parietal brain regions that were considered as a visuospatial working memory network, while the non-experts recruited a language-related brain network including the Brocas area. simple, just nourish the human spirit. Effect of abacus training on executive function development and underlying neural correlates in Chinese children. These promising findings will be of great help for designing more effective cognitive interventions. The more trained this pathway is, the more rapid their mental maths skills are. (2019) found that experienced AMC children (more than 3 years AMC training) showed an advantage over novices (less than half year AMC training) on three different visuospatial span tests. To date, although many studies have shown that cognitive training can improve performance in a variety of cognitive tasks (Diamond and Lee, 2011; Au et al., 2015; Benz et al., 2016), many other fail to replicate these positive effects, especially when it comes to improving domain-general cognitive abilities (far transfer) (Redick et al., 2013; Melby-Lervg et al., 2016; Sala and Gobet, 2019). All these studies indicate that AMC training may exert a transfer effect to the visuospatial sketchpad. The visuospatial sketchpad refers to temporary storage of visual and spatial information. Dev. Several research groups have utilized neuroimaging methods such as positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain regions engaged in AMC operations (Hanakawa et al., 2003; Chen et al., 2006; Wu et al., 2009; Ku et al., 2012; Du et al., 2013). Regarding effects of AMC training on the phonological loop, several early studies have consistently reported that AMC experts exhibited higher digit spans than non-experts (Hatano and Osawa, 1983; Hatta et al., 1989; Tanaka et al., 2002). This raises a question about whether AMC training is helpful for ordinary students in a standard classroom setting, or it is just suited to highly motivated individuals such as students with relatively high visuospatial skills. The phonological loop refers to temporary storage of phonological and auditory information. Given that the neural substrates supporting many cognitive functions are still developing until late childhood and adolescence (Giedd, 2004; Fair et al., 2007), it is possible that such cognitive or neural development during childhood may have buffered the effect of AMC training. Listening: Just as the auditory pathway is developed at a young age to enable fluency in a language, the auditory pathway can be developed for numbers as well. Interestingly, we have noticed that AMC relies on the bilateral frontalparietal regions that serves as the core substrate of visuospatial working memory (Hanakawa et al., 2003), while music recruits many brain regions related to phonological working memory and language processing (Koelsch et al., 2002). Child Dev. doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.3195-18.2019, Wang, P., Liu, H. H., Zhu, X. T., Meng, T., Li, H. J., and Zuo, X. N. (2016). doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2011.07.006, Shapka, J. D., Domene, J. F., and Keating, D. P. (2006). Pers. Want to optimize executive functions and academic outcomes? Lett. Malach, R., Reppas, J. However, this study did not include an active control group with alternative cognitive activities. Training on abacus-based mental calculation enhances resting state functional connectivity of bilateral superior parietal lobules. Due to this extraordinary calculation ability in AMC users, there is an expanding literature investigating the effects of AMC training on cognition and brain systems. Of particularly, regarding the far transfer to fluid intelligence, existing evidence from many recent cognitive training studies (Redick et al., 2013; Thompson et al., 2013; Melby-Lervg et al., 2016; Sala and Gobet, 2019), including AMC findings in the study of Wang et al. doi: 10.4306/pi.2014.11.2.143, Klingberg, T. (2010). Two recent longitudinal studies confirmed this hypothesis by reporting that children with 3 or 5 years of AMC training performed better than active control groups in mental-set shifting tasks (Wang et al., 2015, 2017). Curr. The authors concluded that AMC experts might have developed a visuospatial representation of numbers to expand their digit memory capacity. Chess players outperform non-chess players in cognitive skills related to intelligence: a meta-analysis. Additionally, better mental-set shifting performance was correlated with lower frontal-parietal activation in the AMC-trained children but was associated with greater frontal-parietal activation in the controls. J. Exp. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2012.02.012, Tanaka, S., Michimata, C., Kaminaga, T., Honda, M., and Sadato, N. (2002). 12, 347358. The result 778984 is represented by both the white and gray beads. Neurosci. Fair, D. A., Dosenbach, N. U. F., Church, J. First, experimental designs should be optimized in future AMC studies. Adaptive training leads to sustained enhancement of poor working memory in children. Does your child need a boost of confidence in math? Notably, the conclusions of the above studies were made based on a direct comparison between AMC users and their peers. 11, 669680. (2016). The same way your brain can create a picture of a blue elephant chasing a white mouse, our students create a mental image of the abacus. Of particularly, mathematics at early period has been found to predict ones future developmental outcomes including academic success (Hafer et al., 2002), career aspirations (Shapka et al., 2006) and economic incomes (Joensen and Nielsen, 2009). 3, 313. Thus, future research should include a large battery of cognitive tasks, longitudinal designs with both pre- and post-training, large sample sizes, and at least one active control group to address the effects of AMC training more rigorously. Here, we focus on abacus-based mental calculation (AMC), a specific skill utilized for mental calculations. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2009.11.003, PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar, Amaiwa, S., and Hatano, G. (1989). The Japanese use the pathways of reading, listening, and flash anzan, to achieve this mental prowess. J. Neurosci. Instr. Psychopharmacol. J. Exp. Evaluation of memory in Abacus learners. Neuroimage 24, 3439. Effect of mental abacus training on working memory for children. Kids love Abacus Mental Math! Thirteen months after her stroke, she reported that she was able to shift the mental arithmetic strategy from linguistic to visuospatial representations, and her superior capacity for digit memory recovered. These findings indicate that AMC training may directly enhance basic numerical magnitude processing efficiency, through which the training may contribute to arithmetic development. Besides, the training can result in functional and anatomical neural changes that are largely located within the frontal-parietal and occipital-temporal brain regions. Utilizing graph theory, Weng et al. Considering AMC users extraordinary gains in arithmetic ability, a question worth exploring is whether this arithmetic advantage is accompanied by an advancement in basic numerical magnitude processing. (2006) found that AMC operations in children were related to enhanced activation in the posterior temporal regions including the fusiform gyrus, providing further evidence that this brain region may be utilized to visually represent the imaginary abacus. doi: 10.1207/s1532690xci0801_2, Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., and Wager, T. D. (2000). Thus, AMC training may enhance the shifting efficiency between different contexts and then exert a cognitive transfer to mental-set shifting. Learn. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2019.04.001, Keywords: abacus-based mental calculation, cognitive training, visuospatial processing, cognitive transfer, neuroplasticity, Citation: Wang C (2020) A Review of the Effects of Abacus Training on Cognitive Functions and Neural Systems in Humans. Moreover, consistent with the hypothesis that AMC might be more beneficial to children with relatively high visuospatial skills, the study found that the effects of AMC training on arithmetic performance were significantly mediated by individual differences in visuospatial working memory at the beginning of AMC training. Neuroimage 52, 10591069. (2011) separately reported that children with 1 year AMC training performed better than their peers on different visuospatial memory span tests. Complex network measures of brain connectivity: uses and interpretations. Together, studies concerning the effects of AMC training on special populations such as children with mathematical learning disabilities and blind children are also important and should be fruitful. Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old. The editor and reviewer's affiliations are the latest provided on their Loop research profiles and may not reflect their situation at the time of review. Med. In addition, some recent meta-analyses and reviews differ in their conclusions on the beneficial effects of many training programs including working memory training (Au et al., 2015; Melby-Lervg et al., 2016), video-game training (Wang et al., 2016; Sala and Gobet, 2019), music learning (Benz et al., 2016; Sala and Gobet, 2017) and chess playing (Sala and Gobet, 2016, 2017). doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(83)90035-5, Hatta, T., Hirose, T., Ikeda, K., and Fukuhara, H. (1989). Bach speaks: a cortical Language-Network serves the processing of music. doi: 10.3758/s13423-014-0699-x, Baddeley, A. D. (2012). Investigation of large-scale brain network architecture during specific tasks may bring us a more complete understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying AMC-related cognitive transfer. doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.16-20-06504.1996, Mennes, M., Kelly, C., Zuo, X. N., Di Martino, A., Biswal, B. Front. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). Rev. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.08.010, Becker, C., and Kalina, K. (1975). Educ. However, given that only a Raven test was utilized in prior AMC research to address potential far transfer (Irwing et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2019), further study is warranted. (2015). Amplifying the auditory pathway for numbers develops brainpower and skills that take students to the next level. Kamali, A.-M., Shamsi, F., Zeraatpisheh, Z., Kamelmanesh, M.-M., and Nami, M. (2019). Working memory capacity and fluid abilities: examining the correlation between Operation Span and Raven. Copyright 2020 Wang. The central executive control is a domain-general attentional control system interacting with the two storage systems. Considering that the AMC training can be easily applied in school setting and daily life, it may show more advantages in promotion and application than many cognitive training programs constrained by a laboratory setting. Source Am. PLoS One 10:e0139930. Cortex 48, 11871196. Learn. This study found that activation of the frontal-parietal network during a mental-set shifting task decreased significantly in the AMC-trained children, while activation in similar brain regions increased in the controls. Sequential neural processes in abacus mental addition: an EEG and fMRI case study. 28, 450457. 3:315. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00315, Thompson, T. W., Waskom, M. L., Garel, K. L. A., Cardenas-Iniguez, C., Reynolds, G. O., Winter, R., et al. Hum. Neurosci. Child Psychol. However, no research has compared the effects of AMC and musical training on cognitive functions. What basic number processing measures in kindergarten explain unique variability in first-grade arithmetic proficiency? (2007). Rev. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2010.05.002, Koch, G., Oliveri, M., Torriero, S., Carlesimo, G. A., Turriziani, P., and Caltagirone, C. (2005). Abacus in the brain: a longitudinal functional MRI study of a skilled abacus user with a right hemispheric lesion. Similarly, child experts in AMC were reported to outperform their peers in various arithmetic computation problems (Stigler, 1984; Stigler et al., 1986; Amaiwa and Hatano, 1989; Chen et al., 2006). The right hemisphere later uses this picture to create a mental image of the abacus. Brain regions simultaneously activated in a given cognitive task are often functionally connected during resting-state (Sala-Llonch et al., 2012). Thank you for introducing us to this WONDERFUL PLATFORM. Front. Many researchers in Asia have claimed and proven that abacus stimulates whole-brain development. For instance, Hatano et al. Blind. Fluid intelligence as a predictor of learning: A longitudinal multilevel approach applied to math. Hu, Y., Geng, F., Tao, L., Hu, N., Du, F., Fu, K., et al. Additionally, local efficiency of the fusiform gyrus was found positively correlated with mathematical performance in AMC-trained children but not in the controls. Does your child love math and want to take it to the next level? Bull. These findings are consistent with early psychological studies (Hatano and Osawa, 1983; Stigler, 1984; Hatano et al., 1987), suggesting that a visuospatial imaginary strategy has been developed by AMC training. 41, 49100. Educ. When she started if I asked her what 2+3 was, she would have to count on her fingers to figure it out. 11, 143151. Sci. These processes may improve the capabilities of information transmission and processing of these visual-related brain areas in the whole functional brain network and in turn facilitate mathematical performance. Neurosci. Prior work has reported that memory updating and mental-set shifting are moderately correlated with each another, indicating some common cognitive substrates between the two processes (Miyake et al., 2000). Cogn. 39, 64396448. Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory: a meta-analysis. Psychol. Individual differences in working memory and processing speed predict anticipatory spoken language processing in the visual world. All these studies indicate that AMC operations activate a bilateral frontal-parietal network that serves as the core substrate of visuospatial working memory, while conventional calculations rely on a language-related brain network including the Brocas area. Notably, both the n-back and mental-set shifting tasks in the above studies used visuospatial stimuli. According to several previous studies (Stigler et al., 1986; Miller and Stigler, 1991; Frank and Barner, 2012; Donlan and Wu, 2017), AMC users have been reported to be able to incorporate two types of symbolic number representations visuospatial and phonological representations of numbers, and thus gain a more abstract and flexible understanding of numerical magnitudes.
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