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Numerical comparison tasks are widely used to study the mental representation of numerical magnitude. In study, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while 26 high math-anxious (HMA) and 27 low math-anxious (LMA) individuals were presented with pairs of single-digit Arabic numbers and were asked to decide which one had the larger numerical magnitude. The size of the numbers and the distance between them were manipulated in order to study the size and the distance effects. The results showed that both distance and size effects were larger for the HMA group. As for ERPs, results showed that the ERP distance effect had larger amplitude for both the size and distance effects in the HMA group than among their LMA counterparts. Since this component has been taken as a marker of the processing of numerical magnitude, this result suggests that HMA individuals have a less precise representation of numerical magnitude., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This study uses event-related brain potentials to investigate the difficulties that high math anxious individuals face when processing dramatically incorrect solutions to simple arithmetical problems. To this end, thirteen high math-anxious (HMA) and thirteen low math-anxious (LMA) individuals were presented with simple addition problems in a verification task. The proposed solution could be correct, incorrect but very close to the correct one (small-split), or dramatically incorrect (large-split). The two groups did not differ in mathematical ability or trait anxiety. We reproduced previous results for flawed scores suggesting HMA difficulties in processing large-split solutions. Moreover, large-split solutions elicited a late positive component (P600/P3b) which was more enhanced and delayed in the HMA group. Our study proposes that the pattern of flawed scores found by previous studies (and that we replicate) has to do with HMA individuals'difficulties in inhibiting an extended processing of irrelevant information (large-split solutions)., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)