Psychological Research (2021) 85:1662–1672

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-020-01356-7

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Non‑symbolic representation is modulated by math anxiety

and cognitive inhibition while symbolic representation not
Dongxiao Guan1,2 · Jiru Ai1 · Yaru Gao1 · Hongxia Li1 · Bijuan Huang1 · Jiwei Si1

Received: 10 October 2019 / Accepted: 8 May 2020 / Published online: 29 May 2020
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract
The present study aimed to investigate whether there are basic numerical processing deficits in high math anxiety (HMA)
individuals and examine the effects of cognitive inhibition on the performance of high and low math anxiety (LMA) indi-
viduals. 35 undergraduate students were recruited to perform a numerical comparison task, a numerical Stroop task, a dot
comparison task, and a dot Stroop task. Results showed the following: (1) Compared with LMA group, HMA group reacted
more slowly and exhibited more fixation counts in non-symbolic representation task. (2) Inhibition condition significantly
increased HMA individuals’ fixation durations, whereas the fixation durations of LMA individuals were similar between
inhibition and non-inhibition condition. The results demonstrated that MA might temporarily occupy individuals’ working
memory resources. (3) In non-symbolic representation task, the effect of numerical ratio on fixation counts was larger for
HMA group than that for LMA group under inhibition condition, indicating MA might arise from a basic level deficit in
numerosity processing.

Introduction that 59% of students reported worries that “math classes are
difficult for them” and that 30% of students reported feel-
Mathematics anxiety (MA), as a negative emotional reaction ing helpless when solving math problems (OECD, 2013).
characterized by anxiety, nervousness, fear and avoidance of Researchers have reached broad consensus that there is a
stress when individuals deal with mathematical problems slight to moderate connection between MA and poor math
(Young, Wu, & Menon, 2012; Si, Xu, Feng, Xu, & Zhou, performance (e.g., Ashcraft & Krause, 2007; Devine, Faw-
2014), has become a global phenomenon. Data from the Pro- cett, Szücs, & Dowker, 2012; Zakaria, Zain, Ahmad, &
gram for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed Erlina, 2012). Furthermore, MA also has a significant nega-
tive impact on individuals’ long-term career achievement.
In order to minimize such negative effects of MA, a better
* Jiwei Si
sijiwei1974@126.com understanding of the underlying mechanism of MA’s effects
is required.
Dongxiao Guan
guandongxiao@foxmail.com Currently, several theories have been formulated to
explain the effect of MA. The most dominant theory was
Jiru Ai
1715380552@qq.com proposed by Ashcraft and colleagues (Ashcraft & Faust,
1994; Ashcraft & Kirk, 2001). Considering that the rumi-
Yaru Gao
gyr1997@163.com nation caused by MA would consume individuals’ working
memory (WM) resources that are used to perform math-
Hongxia Li
dongfangxia125@163.com ematical tasks, they claimed that MA has complex effects.
First, there is no obvious effect of MA in simple mathemat-
Bijuan Huang
18766173466@163.com ics tasks. Second, the effect of MA will become more sig-
nificant as the complexity of math-related task situations or
1
School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, No. 1, the difficulty of mathematical problem escalates. Compared
University Road, Science Park, Changqing District, Jinan, with low-mathematics anxiety (LMA) individuals, high-
Shandong, China
mathematics anxiety (HMA) individuals would perform
2
School of Business Administration, Northeastern University, worse on complex arithmetic problems involving high WM
Shenyang, China

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Psychological Research (2021) 85:1662–1672
load (e.g., Ashcraft & Kirk, 2001; Sun, Si, & Xu, 2012).
However, the above theory cannot explain the differences
of the processing of numerical magnitudes between HMA
individuals and LMA individuals (e.g., Maloney, Risko,
Ansari, & Fugelsang, 2010). Generally speaking, people
do not rely heavily on WM resources when representing
numerical magnitudes.
The representation of numerical magnitude is usually
assessed by different variants of the numerical compari-
son task, namely, symbolic number comparison task and
non-symbolic numerosity comparison. In numerical cog-
nition research, it is frequently posited that the processing
of symbolic numbers is the same as the processing of the
non-symbolic numerosities. This is because the above two
number formats are represented by one shared magnitude
system—the Approximate Number System, or shortly ANS
(Marinova, Sasanguie, & Reynvoet, 2020). Some studies
found that individuals with MA might have deficits in the
ANS. In other words, HMA individuals and LMA individu-
als might be not only different in solving difficult math prob-
lems. For example, Maloney, Ansari, & Fugelsang (2011)
pointed out that the influence of numerical distance (i.e.,
the absolute distance between two compared numbers) on
performance was larger for HMA group than that for LMA
group in symbolic numerical comparison task, indicating
the magnitude representation of HMA individuals is less
precise than that of their LMA peers. Utilizing the method
of event-related brain potentials (ERPs), Núñez-Peña and
Suárez-Pellicioni (2014) further verified the result reported
by Maloney et al. (2011). However, both researches used
only a symbolic number comparison task to access ANS
acuity.
In addition to the numerical distance effect (NDE), the
numerical ratio effect (NRE) is also a common phenom-
enon in both non-symbolic magnitude representation and
symbolic magnitude representation (Moyer & Landauer,
1967). NRE implies that participants’ reaction time (RT)
will be longer and error rates (ERs) will be higher when the
numerical ratio between the two stimuli (i.e., the relative
distance between the two numbers) is closer to 1 (Lyons,
Nuerk, & Ansari, 2015). For example, people’s performance
is typically worse when comparing 8 and 9 (ratio = 0.89)
than that when comparing 3 and 9 (ratio = 0.33). Accord-
ing to ANS theory, the smaller the ratio of two numbers
is, the greater the overlap of the ANS representations will
be (Dehaene, Dehaene-Lambertz, & Cohen, 1998; Dietrich,
Stefan, Korbinian, & Elise, 2015). Therefore, NRE is just an
index of the precision of ANS, as NDE is. Only a few studies
investigated whether the sizes of NRE are different for HMA
group and LMA group (e.g., Colomé, 2018). To understand
the influence of MA on numerical representation more in-
depth, the present study and previous researches are unique
in two aspects. First, NRE was examined. Second, we asked
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participants to perform both non-symbolic dot comparison
and symbolic number comparison.
Scholars from diverse domains, such as cognitive psy-
chology, have agreed that emotion and cognition are linked
in a complex way (Wang, Lukowski, Hart, Lyons, & Petrill,
2015). In line with this view, Eysenck, Derakshan, San-
tos and Calvo (2007) suggested that anxiety can damage
the inhibitory function of attentional control, which is an
extremely important WM ability. To be specific, inhibitory
function can resist intense internal tendencies or external
temptations by controlling individuals’ attention, behaviors,
thoughts and/ or emotions. And the function can help indi-
viduals to do something more appropriate or necessary at the
same time (Diamond, 2013). In other words, by inhibiting
dominant reactions, individuals can reduce or even elimi-
nate the interference of unnecessary information in the cur-
rent task, and cope with changing circumstances flexibly.
Therefore, attention resources of anxious individuals may be
distributed preferentially to threatening stimuli irrelevant to
the current task, which results in delay in the processing of
the cognitive task (Eysenck et al., 2007).
Inhibitory function is related not only to anxiety, but also
to ANS. Fuhs and Mcneil (2013) found that children’s inhib-
itory function was significantly correlated with the ability of
ANS. The evidence from neuroscience further revealed that
there was an overlap in the brain activation region between
ANS and inhibitory function (Cantlon, Platt, & Brannon,
2009). Using the Stroop paradigm, Szucs, Devine, Soltesz,
Nobes and Gabriel (2013) conducted an empirical research
to examine the difference of the size of the inhibitory effect
between groups in numerical comparison. They found that
there was a stronger inhibitory effect in children with devel-
opmental dyscalculia than in children with typical develop-
ment. It is worth noting that the Stroop paradigm is a typical
task type to test cognitive inhibition, which is the foundation
of inhibition function (Bai, Jia, & Wang, 2016). Thus trials
in Stroop task usually contain task-irrelevant visual cues that
need inhibiting from conscious aspect.
The present study
Altogether, MA and inhibition function may be able to
jointly affect individuals’ performance in numerical repre-
sentation tasks, and there appears to be no study examin-
ing this issue. The present study investigated exactly this by
combining number/numerosity comparison task and Stroop
paradigm. First, we set the numerical comparison task and
the dot comparison task as a non-inhibition condition (i.e.,
baseline condition). Under the condition, each pair of dot
arrays consisted of physically identical dots (i.e., the surface
area of single dot was the same) and each pair of numbers
used the same font size. Second, the numerical Stroop task
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and the dot Stroop task were set to an inhibition condition.
Unlike the non-inhibition condition, we manipulated visual
characteristics of two compared stimuli under the inhibition
condition. Specifically, dot arrays included physically differ-
ent dots (i.e., the surface area of single dot was not constant)
and numbers were written in the different font size. In order
to compare a pair of numbers/ dot sets under the inhibition
condition, participants needed to inhibit the inference effect
of visual cues on numerical magnitude processing. Third,
each task contained four numerical ratios (0.5, 0.6, 0.7 and
0.8) between the two stimuli to be compared. Each subject
was required to complete all tasks. In this way, we could
directly test whether MA and cognitive inhibition modulate
the numerical representation in young adults.
Considering that eye-tracking technology can provide
sensitive and objective information about attentional pro-
cesses (Duchowski, 2007; Price, Wilkey, & Yeo, 2017),
many researchers have used eye-tracking to explore cogni-
tive mechanisms underlying the numerical representation
and the arithmetic processing (e.g., Merkley & Ansari, 2010;
Hunt, Clark-Carter, & Sheffield, 2015; Price et al., 2017).
Besides, Merkley and Ansari (2010) suggested that cognitive
processes represented by eye movement measures might be
different from the processes reflected by RT measure. There-
fore, this study recorded RTs and indexes of eye movement
simultaneously.
Evidence indicates that there is a close relationship
between arithmetic skills and numerical magnitude repre-
sentations. For example, Goffin and Ansari (2016) found
that the reaction time NDE correlated significantly with
the arithmetic skill indexed by fluency of simple arithme-
tic. To exclude potential effects of differences in arithmetic
skills, the study controlled the score of the French Kit as a
covariate, which reflects the level of individuals’ arithmetic
skill. We hypothesized that (a) the numerical ratio and MA
would interact with participants’ performance on numeri-
cal magnitude representations, and HMA individuals would
display a larger NRE compared with LMA individuals; (b)
inhibition condition would have a negative impact on HMA
individuals’ performance, but it would not influence LMA
individuals; (c) under inhibition conditions, the numerical
representation of HMA individuals would be more inaccu-
rate, and they would show a stronger NRE relative to their
LMA peers.
Methods
Participants
Using an estimated large effect size (f = 0.40, Cohen, 1988),
for 80% power at α = 0.05, the present study would need
N = 34 participants, hence 35 participants were recruited in
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Psychological Research (2021) 85:1662–1672
this study. They were selected from a total of 254 under-
graduate students from Shandong Normal University. All
subjects gave written informed consent. MA was measured
by using the Chinese version of the Revised Mathematical
Anxiety Rating Scale (R-MARS; Si & Liu, 2014), and then
we ranked the participants’ scores from high to low. HMA
group constituted roughly the top 15% of the overall distri-
bution (38 students), and LMA group constituted roughly the
bottom 15% of the overall distribution (38 students). After
that, we invited the subjects to participate in the following
experiments. Finally, 35 subjects took part in the experi-
ments, and they were divided into two groups: 19 students
with HMA (74% female, Mage = 19.37, SD = 1.16), and 16
students with LMA (88% female, Mage = 18.38, SD = 0.72).
All participants completed all the tasks and were paid for
corresponding compensation. This study was approved by
the regional ethics committee.
Materials
Revised Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (R‑MARS)
The Chinese version of the R-MARS (Si & Liu, 2014) was
utilized to evaluate adults’ math anxiety. It consists of 21
items with a 5-point Likert scale, which indicates how anx-
ious participants feel in different math-related situations.
The sum of all item scores equals the total score of the
R-MARS. In the present study, the instrument has shown
strong internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.94).
The French Kit
The current study used two sub-tests of the French Kit of
Cognitive Factors (French, Ekstrom, & Price, 1963) to index
participants’ arithmetic fluency. The addition sub-test com-
prises three-term addition problems; the subtraction/multi-
plication sub-test includes double-digit subtraction problems
and double-digit by single-digit multiplication problems.
Each sub-test contains two pages (each page contains 60
problems). The administration time for each page is 2 min.
Participants were told to solve the problems as quickly and
accurately as possible. The total scores of the test are calcu-
lated by adding up items solved correctly across four pages.
Symbolic magnitude representation task
Participants were asked to select the number with larger
numerical magnitude from a pair of two-digit numbers pre-
sented simultaneously (horizontally). The two numbers were
displayed in black font on a white background. The selection
of number pairs in this study (total of 20 pairs) referred to
the number of dot comparison tasks selected in Teng (2015).
Psychological Research (2021) 85:1662–1672
The number ranged from 5 to 28. There were four numeri-
cal ratios between the two numbers to be compared, which
were approximately 0.5, 0.6, 0.7 and 0.8. For the numerical
comparison task, numbers were presented in the same font
size in all 40 trials (see Fig. 1a). For the numerical Stroop
task, the number with the larger numerical magnitude and
larger font size had to be compared with the number with
the smaller numerical magnitude and smaller font size in
20 trials. While the number with larger numerical magni-
tude but smaller font size was compared to the number with
smaller numerical magnitude but larger font size in the other
20 trials (see Fig. 1b). As for the above two tasks, the larger
number was in the left side of the screen in half the trials,
and the larger number was in the right side of the screen for
the other half.
Non‑symbolic magnitude representation task
Participants had to select the set with more dots from two dot
sets presented simultaneously (horizontally), which included
black dots against a white background. The quantity of dots
in this study was identical with symbolic magnitude repre-
sentation. For the dot comparison task, the two sets to be
compared consisted of physically identical dots (see Fig. 1c).
For the dot Stroop task, the set of dots with more and physi-
cally larger dots (i.e., the total surface area of the dots was
larger), had to be compared with the set of dots with fewer
and physically smaller dots (i.e., the total surface area of
the dots was smaller) in 20 trials. While the set of dots with
more but physically smaller dots (i.e., the total surface area
of the dots was smaller) was compared to an array with fewer
but physically larger dots (i.e., the total surface area of the
dots was larger; see Fig. 1d) in the other 20 trials. As for the
above two tasks, the set with more dots was in the left side
of the screen in half the trials, and the set with more dots was
in the right side of the screen for the other half.
Fig. 1  Four magnitude comparison tasks: a numerical compari-
son task, b numerical Stroop task, c dot comparison task, and d dot
Stroop task
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Procedure
The study was composed of two sessions. The first session
was a group test, in which participants were asked to com-
plete the Chinese version of the R-MARS and two sub-tests
of the French Kit of Cognitive Factors. Participants were
tested in their classroom during the first session. The sec-
ond session (eye-tracking session) was the individual test;
participants were tested in a quiet room that was dimly lit.
Eye-tracking session contained four blocks (i.e., numerical
comparison task, numerical Stroop task, dot comparison
task, and dot Stroop task), which were counterbalanced
among the participants to avoid an order effect. Each block
comprised six practice trials and forty experimental trials.
The order of trials was balanced by Latin square design.
Each trial started with a fixation point (1000 ms). A pair
of number or two sets of dots were then appeared for up to
2000 ms until the subjects pressed one of the response but-
tons, and was followed by a blank screen for 300 ms. We
scheduled a short break between two blocks. An example of
the numerical comparison task was shown in Fig. 2.
Eye‑movement data acquisition
Participants’ eye movements were recorded with an Eye-
link 1000 eye-tracking system (SR Research, Mississauga,
Ontario, Canada) at a sampling frequency of 1000 Hz. Chin
and forehead rests were used in order to minimize head-
movement artifacts. All stimuli were presented on a 19′′
monitor and resolution of 800 × 600 pixels by using E-prime
2.0 software (Psychology Software Tools Inc., Sharpsburg,
PA, USA). This study defined two rectangular interest areas
that were slightly larger than each stimulus presentation area
(left and right). The size of the interest area was consistent
between non-symbolic and symbolic conditions. The two
interest areas were for all subsequent analyses of eye move-
ment data (fixation count and fixation duration). It should
be noted that fixation count (FC) meant the total number of
the fixation on two interest areas, and fixation duration (FD)
meant the total time that individuals spent in fixating on two
interest areas.
Data analysis
We coded the ratio 0.5, 0.6 as small ratio, and the ratio 0.7,
0.8 as large ratio. In order to investigate the effect of numeri-
cal ratio, cognitive inhibition and MA on task performance,
2 (MA Group: HMA vs. LMA) × 2 (Numerical Ratio: small
vs. large) × 2 (Cognitive Inhibition Condition: inhibition
vs. non-inhibition) repeated-measures Analysis of Variance
(ANOVAs) was performed for mean RT, mean FC and mean
FD, with MA Group as between-subject variable, Numerical
Ratio and Cognitive Inhibition Condition as within-subject
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Fig. 2  Single experimental

procedure (e.g., numerical
comparison task)

variables. The above analysis was conducted in the symbolic
magnitude representation and the non-symbolic quantity
magnitude representation, respectively. Only trials with cor-
rect response were included in our analysis. Trials on which
RT was shorter than 100 ms or exceeded 3 standard devia-
tions above each participant’s mean were excluded (1.5%).
In addition, the present study reported behavioral results of
individuals with different MA levels while controlling for
the total score of The French Kit.
were solved slower (M = 910.42, SD = 16.20) than these
with small ratio (M = 881.39, SD = 14.92). Moreover, neither
the main effects of MA Group, Cognitive Inhibition Con-
ditions, the two-way (MA Group × Numerical Ratio, MA
Group × Cognitive Inhibition Condition, nor Cognitive Inhi-
bition Condition × Numerical Ratio) nor three-way interac-
tions (MA Group × Numerical Ratio × Cognitive Inhibition
Condition) reached significance, ps> 0.05.
Fixation count

Results The main effect of Numerical Ratio, MA group, Cognitive

inhibition condition, and the two-way or three-way interac-
Symbolic magnitude representations tions were not significant, ps> 0.05.

Response time Fixation duration

Descriptive statistics outcomes were shown in Table 1. RT There was a MA Group × Cognitive Inhibition Condition
results revealed a significant main effect of Numerical Ratio, interaction (see Fig. 3a), F(1, 32) = 6.67, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.17.
F(1, 32) = 4.22, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.12. Trials with large ratio When each group was analyzed separately, only the

Table 1  Means and standard deviations of response time, fixation duration, fixation counts for LMA and HMA groups under different cognitive
inhibition conditions and numerical ratios in symbolic and non-symbolic magnitude representation tasks
Cognitive inhibi- Numerical ratio Math Symbolic magnitude representation task Non-symbolic magnitude representation task
tion condition anxiety
level RT FD FC RT FD FC

Non-inhibition Large ratio HMA 874.71 (96.26) 680.68 (166.44) 3.17 (0.70) 922.85 (119.31) 713.97 (180.29) 3.61 (0.58)
condition LMA 844.94 (89.65) 725.69 (91.61) 2.77 (0.69) 840.28 (135.00) 716.85 (100.02) 3.18 (0.60)
Small ratio HMA 839.12 (100.03) 662.57 (140.99) 3.05 (0.63) 808.37 (70.65) 631.67 (125.03) 3.27 (0.49)
LMA 808.90 (80.14) 701.86 (81.61) 2.59 (0.65) 745.19 (84.80) 653.50 (66.55) 2.73 (0.49)
Inhibition condi- Large ratio HMA 984.15 (96.86) 837.24 (96.82) 3.37 (0.85) 1027.95 (138.12) 809.66 (156.73) 3.95 (0.62)
tion LMA 935.91 (121.57) 763.75 (174.54) 3.00 (0.69) 922.00 (132.88) 743.51 (118.45) 3.47 (0.76)
Small ratio HMA 958.67 (74.21) 800.97 (98.19) 3.40 (0.66) 866.40 (83.55) 685.38 (107.86) 3.35 (0.56)
LMA 917.22 (124.30) 743.50 (157.74) 2.89 (0.67) 790.23 (95.77) 651.16 (89.92) 3.10 (0.75)

RT, FD and FC are the means and standard deviations (in black bracket) of response time, fixation duration and fixation counts, respectively
HMA high math anxiety, LMA low math anxiety

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Psychological Research (2021) 85:1662–1672
Fig. 3  Fixation duration (FD; mean and standard error) as a function
of cognitive inhibition condition in high math anxiety (HMA) and
low math anxiety (LMA) groups in symbolic/ non-symbolic mag-
nitude representation: a symbolic magnitude representation, b non-
symbolic magnitude representation
participants in HMA group showed significant differences
between the two cognitive conditions, F(1, 32) = 21.63,
p < 0.001, η2p = 0.40, whose fixation durations were longer
under inhibition condition than under non-inhibition condi-
tion. As for LMA group, the difference between the two cog-
nitive conditions did not reach significance, F(1, 32) = 0.39,
p = 0.54, η2p = 0.01. There was no main effect of Numeri-
cal Ratio, MA Group, Cognitive Inhibition Condition, nei-
ther MA Group × Numerical Ratio, Cognitive Inhibition
Condition × Numerical Ratio, nor MA Group × Numeri-
cal Ratio × Cognitive Inhibition Condition interactions,
ps> 0.05.
To sum up, we observed the NRE in the representation of
symbolic magnitude. More importantly, FD results showed
1667
an interaction between MA and cognitive inhibition. As we
have expected, inhibition condition significantly increased
HMA individuals’ fixation durations, whereas LMA individ-
uals spent similar time in fixating interest areas under both
inhibition and non-inhibition conditions. Therefore, the cog-
nitive inhibition condition appeared to negatively influence
HMA participants’ performance on numerical magnitude
representation, and it did not impact LMA participants’ per-
formance. Unexpectedly, the MA Group × Numerical Ratio
interaction did not reach significance, no matter in RT, FC,
or FD analyses. These results did not replicate the findings
obtained by Maloney et al. (2011) and Núñez-Peña and
Suárez-Pellicioni (2014), which showed that HMA group
displayed a larger distance effect in number comparison
tasks compared with LMA group. Instead, there appeared to
be no deficit in processing numerical information for HMA
individuals. Finally, we failed to find the three-way interac-
tion (MA Group × Numerical Ratio × Cognitive Inhibition
Condition) in all of RT, FC, or FD analyses. Our results
indicated that cognitive inhibition might not relate to the
processing of numerical magnitudes.
Non‑symbolic magnitude representations
Response time
Descriptive statistics outcomes are shown in Table 1. RT
results revealed a significant main effect of Numerical Ratio,
F(1, 32) = 4.82, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.13. Participants took sig-
nificantly longer time to respond to trials with large ratio
(M = 928.16, SD = 20.42) relative to trials with small ratio
(M = 802.67, SD = 13.49). Notably, the main effect of MA
Group also reached significance, F(1, 32) = 5.23, p < 0.05,
η2p = 0.14. HMA individuals reacted slower (M = 906.35,
SD = 23.30) than their LMA counterparts (M = 824.48,
SD = 25.55). However, there was no main effect of Cogni-
tive Inhibition Condition, no two-way (MA Group × Numeri-
cal Ratio, MA Group × Cognitive Inhibition Condition, nor
Cognitive Inhibition Condition × Numerical Ratio) or three-
way interactions (MA Group × Numerical Ratio × Cognitive
Inhibition Condition), ps > 0.05.
Fixation count
The main effect of Numerical Ratio was significant, F(1,
32) = 5.94, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.16. The fixation counts were
different between HMA and LMA group, F(1, 32) = 4.41,
p < 0.05, η2p = 0.12. Paired comparison showed the fixation
counts of HMA group (M = 3.55, SD = 0.48) were more
than that of their LMA peers (M = 3.12, SD = 0.61). More
importantly, the triple interaction MA Group × Numerical
Ratio × Cognitive Inhibition Condition interaction reached
significance [F(1, 32) = 4.57, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.13]. Separate
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ANOVAs were conducted for the inhibition condition
and the non-inhibition condition, with MA Group as the
between-subjects factor and Numerical Ratio as the within-
subject factor (see Fig. 4). The main effect of Numerical
Ratio [F(1, 32) = 5.13, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.14] and the Numeri-
cal Ratio × MA Group interaction [F(1, 32) = 5.74, p < 0.05,
η2p = 0.15] were significant only for inhibition condition,
showing that both HMA group and LMA group demon-
strated NRE [F(1, 32) = 89.43, p < 0.001, η2p = 0.74; F(1,
32) = 27.73, p < 0.001, η2p = 0.46, respectively].
On this basis, in order to further determine whether
the NRE of HMA group was stronger than LMA group,
we constructed the index of NRE (large ratio–small ratio
Fig. 4  Fixation count (FC; mean and standard error) as a function of
numerical ratio in high math anxiety (HMA) and low math anxiety
(LMA) groups in non-inhibition/ inhibition condition in non-sym-
bolic magnitude representation: a non-inhibition condition, b inhibi-
tion condition
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Psychological Research (2021) 85:1662–1672
difference) with reference to Núñez-Peña and Suárez-
Pellicioni (2014). ANOVAs were performed for the NRE,
with Cognitive Inhibition Condition as within-subject
factors and MA Group as the between-subjects factor.
The MA Group × Cognitive Inhibition Condition interac-
tion was significant, F(1, 32) = 4.57, p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.13,
revealing that NRE in HMA group was larger than that in
LMA group for the inhibition condition, F(1, 32) = 5.74,
p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.15. Nonetheless, the difference of NRE
between HMA group and LMA group was not signifi-
cant under the non-inhibition condition, F(1, 32) = 0.62,
p = 0.44, ηp2 = 0.02.
Fixation duration
There was a MA Group × Cognitive Inhibition Condi-
tion interactionsee (Fig. 3b), F(1, 32) = 6.52, p < 0.05,
ηp2 = 0.17. Simple effect analysis results showed that the
fixation durations of HMA group was longer under the
inhibition condition than that under the non-inhibition
condition, F(1, 32) = 13.10, p = 0.001, η p2 = 0.29. How-
ever, for LMA group, the difference of fixation durations
between the inhibition condition and the non-inhibition
condition was not significant, F(1, 32) = 0.06, p = 0.80,
ηp2 = 0.00. No main effect of Numerical Ratio, MA Group,
Cognitive Inhibition Condition, and no other two-way or
three-way interactions were found, ps > 0.05.
To sum up, we also observed NRE in the non-symbolic
magnitude representation. Furthermore, HMA individuals’
fixation durations significantly increased under inhibition
condition than under non-inhibition condition, and the
inhibition condition had no effect on LMA group. These
results were in line with our hypothesis. It should be noted
that we found the differences caused by MA in non-sym-
bolic magnitude representations. Specifically, the RTs of
HMA group were longer than that of LMA group and the
FCs of HMA group were also more than that of LMA
group. Although we did not confirm the data obtained
by Maloney et al. (2011) and Núñez-Peña and Suárez-
Pellicioni (2014), our results opposed the view that MA
has complex effects: there is no obvious effect of MA in
simple mathematics tasks (Ashcraft & Faust, 1994; Ash-
craft & Kirk, 2001). Instead, our results of non-symbolic
representation tasks supported that HMA individual might
have a basic deficit in numerical manipulating (Maloney
et al., 2010). Above all, we observed an expected three-
way interaction MA Group × Numerical Ratio × Cogni-
tive Inhibition Condition in FC analysis. Further analysis
described that under inhibition conditions, HMA individu-
als showed a stronger NRE relative to their LMA peers.
Our results indicated that cognitive and MA could modu-
late non-symbolic representations.
Psychological Research (2021) 85:1662–1672
Discussion
The current study examined the effect of MA and cog-
nitive inhibition on the symbolic magnitude representa-
tion and the non-symbolic magnitude representation. We
hoped that eye-movement measures could provide unique
evidences about the numerical magnitude representation
of individuals with different MA levels, and beyond the
findings described by reaction time.
In symbolic magnitude representation as well as non-
symbolic magnitude representation, this study found a reli-
able NRE reflected by RT (symbolic/non- symbolic task)
and FC (non-symbolic task) measurements. However, we
did not replicate the findings reported by previous studies
(e.g., Maloney et al., 2011; Núñez-Peña and Suárez-Pelli-
cioni, 2014): there was an interaction between MA and the
numerical distance in the symbolic number comparison
task. For the absence of this interaction in our symbolic
representation task, the reason could be one of several.
First, our task included trials involving two-digit num-
ber pairs, and previous studies used a one-digit number
comparison task (e.g., Maloney et al., 2011; Núñez-Peña
and Suárez-Pellicioni, 2014). Compared with single-digit
numbers, the comparison of two-digit numbers seems to
require additional processes, such as Huber, Nuerk, Reips
and Soltanlou (2017) suggested that the tens and units
of two- digits numbers are operated separately when two
numbers are compared. Therefore, we speculated these
additional cognitive processes might modulate or even
obscure the difference of the NRE between HMA group
and LMA group (e.g., Huber, Moeller, Nuerk, & Willmes,
2013; Huber et al., 2017). Further investigations should
control the influence of these other processes when using
multi-digit number comparison tasks. Second, besides
MA, other individual differences, such as gender and
time spent in playing computer games, could also influ-
ence individuals’ performance when they compared a pair
of two-digit numbers (Huber et al., 2017). Specifically,
the response time of female subjects was slower and the
time spent playing computer games was positively corre-
lated with reaction speed. As for our study, the proportion
of female subjects in HMA group and LMA group was
not completely equal, and we did not ask participants to
report how long they spent in playing computer games.
These factors might cause the failure to repeat the findings
observed by previous studies (e.g., Maloney et al., 2011;
Núñez-Peña and Suárez-Pellicioni, 2014), and it should be
taken into account the influence of these factors in future
research.
Finally, some studies verified the correlation between
arithmetic skills and numerical magnitude representa-
tions (e.g., Goffin & Ansari, 2016; Hawes, Nosworthy,
1669
Archibald, & Ansari, 2019). Recently, Huang, Zhao, Li,
Yang and Si (2019) chose four groups with different levels
of MA and arithmetic skill to complete a symbolic repre-
sentation task. RT results showed that individuals with
high arithmetic skill responded faster than individuals with
low arithmetic skill, and there was no difference between
HMA group and LMA group. Furthermore, there was a
MA × arithmetic skill interaction in electrophysiological
results, suggesting that basic arithmetic skill could modu-
late the MA-performance link. Arithmetic skill (as meas-
ured by the French kit) was entered as a covariate in our
analysis, whereas previous studies, such as Maloney et al.
(2011) and Núñez-Peña and Suárez-Pellicioni (2014), did
not take any measure of arithmetic skill or control that as
a covariate. Thus, there could be potential effects of arith-
metic skill on the relationship between MA and numerical
magnitude representation in their studies.
Although the MA group × numerical ratio interaction was
not observed in the non- symbolic magnitude representation
task, we found that HMA individuals reacted more slowly
and used more fixation counts in non-symbolic tasks than
their LMA counterparts. These results were consistent with
the findings reported by Maloney et al. (2010). They found
that LMA individuals performed significantly better than
HMA individuals in the counting range, which indicated
that MA could arise from a basic level deficit in numerical
processing. This view challenged the dominant account of
mathematics anxiety by Ashcraft and colleagues. Given that
working memory resources could be consumed by rumina-
tions induced by anxiety, Ashcraft and Faust (1994) assumed
that MA would affect individuals’ performance only for
complex mathematical problems that were depended on
abundant cognitive resources. In other words, their view
has two main ideas: (a) the impact of MA on performance
has complexity effect, and (b) MA undermines individu-
als’ performance on mathematical problem solving through
briefly consuming WM resources (Maloney et al., 2010).
Our RT and FC results in the non-symbolic task contra-
dicted the first idea. We confirmed that MA could also affect
individuals’ performance in simple mathematical task (e.g.,
non-symbolic magnitude representations), suggesting that
HMA individuals might have a defect in representing non-
symbolic magnitude.
Expectedly, FD results showed that there was just an
interaction between MA and cognitive inhibition conditions
in both the symbolic magnitude representation task and the
non-symbolic magnitude representation task. Specifically,
HMA individuals were more sensitive to the setting of inhi-
bition conditions, because their fixation times increased
significantly under inhibition conditions. Considering that
the fixation duration depends on the amount of cognitive
processing, also known as cognitive load (Rayner, 1998), we
suggested that HMA individuals might pay more cognitive
13
1670
resources to inhibition conditions than to non-inhibition
conditions. Hence, these results supported the second idea
proposed by Ashcraft and Faust (1994): MA undermines
individuals’ mathematical relevant performance by briefly
consuming WM resources. Similarly, Ashkenazi (2018) used
the numerical Stroop paradigm and found that HMA indi-
viduals showed higher processing of information unrelated
to numerical after mathematical priming. This result may be
due to the fact that there is a vigilance-avoidance pattern in
the attention bias of anxious individuals. Pizzie and Kraemer
(2017) verified this view from the perspective of cognitive
neuroscience. They observed that HMA participants first
showed stronger amygdala reactivity while responding to
transient mathematical stimuli, and then they exhibited a dis-
engagement bias away from math stimuli in behavior. Their
findings meant that anxious individuals would prefer to
focus on threatening information during the early automatic
stage of processing, while in later period (more strategic pro-
cessing stages), they tend to shift their attention away from
threats (Pizzie & Kraemer, 2017; Ashkenazi, 2018). With
regard to our study, the existence of inhibition condition
might make the task more difficult, which caused that more
cognitive resources were needed to complete the task and
anxiety could impair individuals’ attention control, which
made HMA individuals fail to allocate attention resources
to current task effectively. Hence, HMA participants spent
more fixation times in comparing two stimuli.
Just as expected, we found a three-way interaction MA
group × numerical ratio × cognitive inhibition in the non-
symbolic representation task, which reflected by FC meas-
urements. To be clear, HMA group displayed larger NRE in
the dot Stroop task than LMA group. Processing efficiency
theory (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992) claimed that anxiety can
occupy part of limited WM resources, which will reduce the
cognitive resources allocated to the current task. Eysenck
and Calvo (1992) suggested that there may be a compensa-
tion effect when the current task is relatively simple (i.e.,
requires less working memory resources). Therefore, the per-
formance effectiveness, reflected by behavior measurement
indicators, might be not affected by anxiety. When the task
is relatively difficult (i.e., need more cognitive resources),
which will lead to the competition of cognitive resources
between anxiety and the task requirement, and damage the
anxiety individuals’ performance effectiveness. According
to this view, we thought that cognitive resources of HMA
individuals were sufficient under non-inhibition condition;
they could consciously compensate for quantitative process-
ing. Consequently, there seemed to be no difference in NRE
between HMA group and LMA group. Instead, under inhibi-
tion condition, HMA individuals’ cognitive resources were
used to deal with the interference information in the task and
the ruminations induced by anxiety, thus the compensation
effect did not exist. Hence, HMA group inevitably showed
13
Psychological Research (2021) 85:1662–1672
a greater NRE effect, which also reflected the nature that the
ANS of HMA individuals was more imprecise. The results
further supported that the poor performance of HMA indi-
viduals in the math-related task might be due to their basic
and low-level defects in quantitative processing.
Most numerical cognitive models assumed that both sym-
bolic and non-symbolic quantities are processed by ANS,
and the processing is according to Weber’s law. However,
we did not obtain the similar three-way interaction (MA
group × numerical ratio × cognitive inhibition) in symbolic
representation task. Krajcsi, Lengyel, and Kojouharova
(2018) reported that the ANS model can better predict the
performance of non-symbolic dot comparisons, while its
predictions for symbolic India-Arabic numbers are less pre-
cise. This is to say that non-symbolic dot comparison tasks
may be more suitable for measuring individuals’ ANS acu-
ity. Besides, some researchers also suggested that NRE in
symbolic tasks might be related to the numerical comparison
process, rather than ANS acuity (e.g., Dietrich et al., 2015;
Carrie, Danielle, & Christine, 2016). Therefore, the absence
of the three-way interaction in the symbolic task might be
caused by the fact that HMA individuals had no defects in
processing numerical magnitudes. Taken together, these
results revealed that the ANS acuity of HMA individuals
might be less precise than that of LMA individuals, and
there appeared to be no difference between HMA group and
LMA group in representing numerical magnitudes.
Educational implications
The present study showed that HMA individuals might have
defects in representing the numerosity magnitude. Specifi-
cally, their ANS seem to be less precise. Maloney et al.
(2011) pointed out the difficulty that HMA have in com-
pleting complex problems may fundamentally result from
imprecise representations of numerical magnitude. Braham
and Libertus (2018) found there is a positive relationship
between the precision of ANS and applied problem solv-
ing, which is only present in HMA students. Therefore, the
precision of ANS could be served as a ‘protective factor’
for HMA individuals (Braham & Libertus, 2018). The good
ANS acuity is likely to improve HMA students’ high-level
math skills, which are used to solve difficult mathematics
problems. When HMA individuals have less difficulty in
solving complex math problems, the levels of anxiety would
decrease. Besides, research from children with develop-
mental dyscalculia examined that a short-term numerosity
training could boost these children’s arithmetic performance
(Cheng et al. 2019). As for HMA students, we suggest that
their parents and teachers can conduct the training of non-
symbolic quantity representation, which could promote
these students’ ANS acuity and improve their performance
on more difficult problems.
Psychological Research (2021) 85:1662–1672
Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to Ms. Tingting Wang,
Xiao Ding, and Yalin Yang, Mr Weixing Yang, and Jiajia Zhang for
their distinguished contributions to collecting the experimental data.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (31371048; 31971010) and Ministry of Education Humanities
and Social Sciences Research Foundation (18YJA190014).
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The author(s) declared no potential conflict of in-
terest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Ethical statement This study was funded by 31371048, 31971010, and
18YJA190014. The manuscript does not contain clinical studies or
patient data. Studies were approved by the local ethics committee and
all experimental manipulations were in accordance with the approved
guidelines.
Informed consent All human participants had signed an informed
consent form.
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