In two experiments, we studied how people's strategy choices emerge through an initial and then a more considered evaluation of available strategies. The experiments employed a computer-based paradigm where participants solved multiplication problems using mental and calculator solutions. In addition to recording responses and solution times, we…

Drawing upon research, theory, classroom and personal experiences, this paper focuses on the development of primary-aged children's computational fluency. It emphasises the critical links between number sense and a child's ability to perform mental and written computation. The case of multi-digit multiplication is used to illustrate these…

Three experiments evaluated performance on a mental multiplication task and the adequacy of several different models of mental addition as extended to multiplication. Results are discussed in terms of a network-retrieval approach to mental arithmetic, the commonalities between addition and multiplication, and rule- versus retrieval-based…

Using R. S. Siegler's retrieval-required task, 19 male and 22 female third graders were examined before they had been introduced to multiplication in school. Examination of error patterns suggests that the basic assumptions of the distribution-of-associations model need to be tested directly and that the retrieval-required task confounds retrieved…

This report describes a simulation of adults' retrieval of arithmetic facts from a network-based memory representation. The goals of the simulation project are to: demonstrate in specific form the nature of a spreading activation model of mental arithmetic; account for three important reaction time effects observed in laboratory investigations;…