Imbo, I. 1 & LeFevre, J. 2
1 Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium
2 Centre for Applied Cognitive Research, Carleton University, Canada
In a recent study, Imbo & LeFevre (2009) tested the effects of working-memory load on complex addition solving (e.g., 58 + 76) in three different cultures (Belgians, Canadians, and Chinese). The Chinese participants were faster than the Belgians, who were faster and more accurate than the Canadians. The Chinese also required fewer working-memory resources than did the Belgians and Canadians. However, the Chinese chose less adaptively from the available strategies than did the Belgians and Canadians. In this talk, we present a follow-up study, in which we tested the effects of culture, response language, and computational skill on strategy efficiency and strategy adaptivity. Three groups of participants were tested on a computational estimation task (e.g., 42 x 57 = ?) in no-load and load conditions: 40 Belgian-educated adults who answered in their first language (Dutch), 40 Chinese-educated adults who answered in their first language (Chinese), and 40 Chinese-educated adults who answered in their second language (English). The Belgians, who had weaker computational skills than the Chinese, were less efficient in solving the estimation problems than the Chinese answering in their first language. The Chinese who answered in English were slower than the Chinese who answered in Chinese, and this difference was larger for difficult strategies and under working memory load. Strategy adaptivity was lower in the Chinese groups than in the Belgian group. That is, the Chinese were less likely to choose the strategy that produced the best estimate, and especially so when their working memory was loaded. The efficiency results are interpreted in terms of the encoding complex model, whereas the explanation for the adaptivity results is based on cultural differences in educational history.