Implicit (non-declarative) long-term memory stores memories that don't require conscious thought. Procedural memory involves learning a sequence of actions, such as riding a bicycle and performing mathematical operations. They are automatically retrieved and used to perform these tasks. Working memory is a system with limited capacity.
When a mathematical task requires actively processing or keeping too much information in memory for a child, there is a loss of information and, as a result, poor performance. Children with dyscalculia show critical problems at the level of working memory, especially with visuospatial memory (Szucs et al, 201. To make it easier for children with this type of problem to carry out the mathematical exercises proposed in class, it is necessary to develop intervention programs designed to avoid information overload in working memory. As we will see in future posts, different activities can be carried out to promote opportunities for mathematical learning in children with limited working memory capacity. For years, mathematicians, including Einstein, have said that they rely more on mental signs and images than on words.
The results published by Stanislas Dehaene, from Frederic Joliot Hospital in France, and Elizabeth S. Spelke, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, show that exact arithmetic uses a part of the brain that is usually active during verbal memory tasks. The article, published in a special issue on reading and mathematics in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, proposes that mathematical disability is due to abnormalities in the areas of the brain that support procedural memory. Procedural memory is a learning and memory system crucial for automating unconscious skills, such as driving or grammar.
It depends on a network of brain structures, including the basal ganglia and regions of the frontal and parietal lobes.
