Dora Elizabeth Granados Ramos

F109. An event-related brain potential study of the arithmetic skills in college students

Introduction The arithmetic is fundamental in everyday life and represent an elemental part of learning of the individuals being a tool that allows an optimal performance in the resolution of problematic situations. One of the main research objectives of human behavior is understanding of cognitive processes such as arithmetic processing through neurophysiological techniques as the Event Related Potentials (ERPs). ERPs are a series of positive or negative oscillations, result of averaging segments where visual or auditory stimuli were presented to the participant during the electroencephalogram. Arithmetic processes have been associated to the Late Positive Component (LPC) located in central-parietal regions. Methods The sample consisted of 26 participants, 17 women and 9 men, with an average age of 21.3 years (SD ± 4.4 years). The EEG was performed with the software Curry XS Neuroscan System®, using 62 Au electrodes. The original file was converted, from data format to cnt format. The obtained signal was segmented in times with an analysis window of −400 to 1600 ms, rejection of muscular and ocular artifact was made, with Independent Component Analysis. Both the verification and the production paradigms were presented on a monitor with a resolution of 1280 × 960 pixels during the EEG. The verification paradigm had a total of 80 arithmetic operations of integers with a possible response, the participant had to answer if the response showed was either correct or incorrect, to record the responses a board with two buttons was used, one button for the correct answer and one for the incorrect answer. The production paradigm had a total of 80 arithmetic operations of whole numbers, the participant had to answer verbally during a neutral stimulus. With sampling frequency of 1000 Hz. Each arithmetic operation lasted 4000 ms followed by a neutral stimulus (a point in the center of the screen) with a duration of 500 ms where the participant gave the answer. The analyses with the EEGLAB tool of the MATLAB software. The PREs of each participant were analyzed and then the average of each stimulus was made Results The right answers in the complex operations were significantly lower than the those in the simple operations x2 (1, N = 80) = 42.89, p  Conclusion There were no differences in the right answers of the participants between experimental paradigms. The type of operation and its difficulty did not affect the early ERPs however amplitude of the LPC appears to be sensitive to arithmetic production tasks.