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A study on how children acquire knowledge shows that as children get older, they rely more on retrieving facts from memory than doing actual counting [Study Abstract].
During the study, as the children aged from an average of 8.2 to 9.4 years, they became faster and more accurate at solving math problems, and relied more on retrieving math facts from memory and less on counting. As these shifts in strategy took place, the researchers saw several changes in the children’s brains. The hippocampus, a region with many roles in shaping new memories, was activated more in children’s brains after one year. Regions involved in counting, including parts of the prefrontal and parietal cortex, were activated less.
The scientists also saw changes in the degree to which the hippocampus was connected to other parts of children’s brains, with several parts of the prefrontal, anterior temporal cortex and parietal cortex more strongly connected to the hippocampus after one year. Crucially, the stronger these connections, the greater was each individual child’s ability to retrieve math facts from memory, a finding that suggests a starting point for future studies of math-learning disabilities.
Although children were using their hippocampus more after a year, adolescents and adults made minimal use of their hippocampus while solving math problems. Instead, they pulled math facts from well-developed information stores in the neocortex.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday August 21 2014, @10:50AM
Everything is mathematics, for particular definitions of "everything", "mathematics" and "is".
While I'd go with arithmetic definitely being part of maths, I'd agree that describing a study that specifically looked at basic arithmetic skills as being about solving "math problems" is sloppy. Ask anybody who actually enjoyed mathematics at school and they'll likely cite one of its virtues as "you didn't have to remember so much".
Lets not let in any straw men here: learning basic arithmetic is a worthwhile thing to do in school, and you probably will be faster and more accurate if you don't still have to count on your fingers when doing algebra - but it is only one small part of mathematics and shouldn't be the "gatekeeper" to the rest of the subject. Unfortunately, it is much easier to test kids on how many facts they can recall than it is to see if they can reason mathematically.