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A positive attitude toward math boosts the brain鈥檚 memory center and predicts math performance independent of factors such as a child鈥檚 IQ, a Stanford study has found.

For release: January 24, 2018

From the

For the first time, scientists have identified the brain pathway that links a positive attitude toward math to achievement in the subject.

In a study of elementary school students, researchers at the found that having a positive attitude about math was connected to better function of the hippocampus, an important memory center in the brain, during performance of arithmetic problems.

The findings were published online Jan. 24 in .

Educators have long observed higher math scores in children who show more interest in math and perceive themselves as being better at it. But it has not been clear if this attitude simply reflects other capacities, such as higher intelligence.

The new study found that, even once IQ and other confounding factors were accounted for, a positive attitude toward math still predicted which students had stronger math performance.

鈥楢ttitude is really important鈥�

鈥淎ttitude is really important,鈥� said Lang Chen, PhD, the study鈥檚 lead author and a postdoctoral scholar in psychiatry and behavioral sciences. 鈥淏ased on our data, the unique contribution of positive attitude to math achievement is as large as the contribution from IQ.鈥�

The scientists had not expected the contribution of attitude to be so large, Chen said. The mechanism underlying its link to cognitive performance was also unexpected.

鈥淚t was really surprising to see that the link works through a very classical learning and memory system in the brain,鈥� said the study鈥檚 senior author, , professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

Researchers had previously hypothesized that the brain鈥檚 reward centers might drive the link between attitude and achievement 鈥� perhaps children with better attitudes were better at math because they found it more rewarding or motivating. 鈥淚nstead, we saw that if you have a strong interest and self-perceived ability in math, it results in enhanced memory and more efficient engagement of the brain鈥檚 problem-solving capacities,鈥� Menon said.

The researchers administered standard questionnaires to 240 children ages 7 to 10, assessing demographics, IQ, reading ability and working-memory capacity. The children鈥檚 level of math achievement was measured with tests of their knowledge of arithmetic facts and ability to solve math word problems. Parents or guardians answered surveys about the children鈥檚 behavioral and emotional characteristics, as well as their anxiety about math and general anxiety. Children also answered a survey that assessed their attitude toward math, including questions about interest in math and self-perceived math ability, as well as their attitude toward academics in general.

Forty-seven children from the group also participated in MRI brain scans while performing arithmetic problems. Tests were conducted outside the MRI scanner to discern which problem-solving strategies they used. An independent group of 28 children also was given MRI scans and other assessments in an attempt to replicate the findings from the cohort previously given brain scans.

Opening the door

Math performance correlated with a positive attitude toward math even after statistically controlling for IQ, working memory, math anxiety, general anxiety and general attitude toward academics, the study found. Children with poor attitudes toward math rarely performed well in the subject, while those with strongly positive attitudes had a range of math achievement.

鈥淎 positive attitude opens the door for children to do well but does not guarantee that they will; that depends on other factors as well,鈥� Chen said.

From the brain-imaging results, the scientists found that, when a child was solving a math problem, his or her positive-attitude scores correlated with activation in the hippocampus, an important memory and learning center in the brain. Activity in the brain鈥檚 reward centers, including the amygdala and the ventral striatum, was not linked to a positive attitude toward math. Statistical modeling of the brain imaging results suggested that the hippocampus mediates the link between positive attitude and efficient retrieval of facts from memory, which in turn is associated with better problem solving abilities.

鈥淗aving a positive attitude acts directly on your memory and learning system,鈥� Chen said. 鈥淚 think that鈥檚 really important and interesting.鈥�

Having a positive attitude acts directly on your memory and learning system.

The study could not disentangle the extent to which a positive attitude came from a child鈥檚 prior success in math. 鈥淲e think the relationship between positive attitude and math achievement is mutual, bi-directional,鈥� Chen said. 鈥淲e think it鈥檚 like bootstrapping: A good attitude opens the door to high achievement, which means you then have a better attitude, getting you into a good circle of learning. And it can probably go the other way and be a vicious circle, too.鈥�

The findings may provide a new avenue for improving academic performance and learning in children who are struggling, Menon said, cautioning that this idea still needs to be tested through active interventions.

鈥淭ypically, we focus on skill learning in individual academic domains, but our new work suggests that looking at children鈥檚 beliefs about a subject and their self-perceived abilities might provide another inroad to maximizing learning,鈥� Menon said. The findings also offer a potential explanation for how a particularly passionate teacher can nurture students鈥� interest and learning capacities for a subject, he added. Inspiring teachers may be instinctively sharing their own interest, as well as instilling students in the belief that they can be good at the subject, building a positive attitude even if the student did not have it before.

Other Stanford authors of the paper are former research assistant Se Ri Bae; research scientists Shaozheng Qin, PhD, and Tianwen Chen, PhD; and former postdoctoral scholars Christian Battista, PhD, and Tanya Evans, PhD.

Menon is a member of , and the . The research was funded by the (grants HD047520, HD059205 and HD057610).

厂迟补苍蹿辞谤诲鈥檚 also supported the work.

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