<p>What I know is that there is evidence that the brain treats arithmetics very similarly as language. I also know that there is a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627304006786" rel="nofollow noreferrer">cortical area</a> more akin to encoding the sense of numerosity, which could be accessed while performing arithmetic calculations. However, I am no expert in the area and only know of some works done by some colleagues that I'll link here.</p>

<ol>
<li><p><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027712001357" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Eye gaze reveals a fast, parallel extraction of the syntax of arithmetic formulas</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635212500252" rel="nofollow noreferrer">When order matters: Last-come first-served effect in sequential arithmetic operations</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811912004016" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The cortical representation of simple mathematical expressions</a></p></li>
</ol>

<p>If you are interested, you should look at <a href="http://www.college-de-france.fr/site/stanislas-dehaene/index.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Stanislas Dehaene's work</a>. He has many papers on how the brain does math and how it also is able to naturally encode numbers.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-24T19:09:13.380Z
2017-01-24T19:09:13.380Z
lucianopaz
<p>It is true that the brain greatly outperforms the calculator, but it is apparent that humans make mistakes even with simple math problems, and take longer to answer, whilst the calculator just runs a bunch of bits through logic gates and pops out a correct result almost instantaneously.</p>

<p>Considering the above statement, it seems apparent that the human mind takes a completely different approach to arithmetic problems than the calculator.</p>

<p>Has there been any research that at least provides a general idea of the brain's approach?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-11-15T23:13:42.390Z
If you could give the calculations to be made to a calculator telepathically then a calculator would **probably** beat any human brain with complex calculations. However when using a calculator it can only work as quickly as the person entering the calculation accurately.  Also mathematical calculations can be done using quick tricks which are taught or just stumbled upon (for example see http://www.wisebread.com/11-useful-genius-math-tricks-that-are-actually-easy)
Chris Rogers
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-11-17T14:50:44.083Z
Just found a few papers of a cognitive architecture called ACT-R that tries to explain how people perform arithmetics: http://ra.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/home/ftp/anon/1998/CMU-CS-98-186.pdf , http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1545&context=psychology and http://pact.cs.cmu.edu/pubs/Ritter%20Anderson%20Koedinger%20Corbett%202007.pdf . Hope that I can find time to explain the lot. I suggest you first read the second article plus some questions about ACT-R here on CogSci.
Robin Kramer-ten Have
<cognitive-psychology>
Is there any explanation of how the human brain calculates arithmetical problems?
John K
# Is there any explanation of how the human brain calculates arithmetical problems?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-11-15)

It is true that the brain greatly outperforms the calculator, but it is apparent that humans make mistakes even with simple math problems, and take longer to answer, whilst the calculator just runs a bunch of bits through logic gates and pops out a correct result almost instantaneously.

Considering the above statement, it seems apparent that the human mind takes a completely different approach to arithmetic problems than the calculator.

Has there been any research that at least provides a general idea of the brain's approach?

**Tags:** cognitive-psychology

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: If you could give the calculations to be made to a calculator telepathically then a calculator would **probably** beat any human brain with complex calculations. However when using a calculator it can only work as quickly as the person entering the calculation accurately.  Also mathematical calculations can be done using quick tricks which are taught or just stumbled upon (for example see http://www.wisebread.com/11-useful-genius-math-tricks-that-are-actually-easy)  
> **username_2**: Just found a few papers of a cognitive architecture called ACT-R that tries to explain how people perform arithmetics: http://ra.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/home/ftp/anon/1998/CMU-CS-98-186.pdf , http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1545&context=psychology and http://pact.cs.cmu.edu/pubs/Ritter%20Anderson%20Koedinger%20Corbett%202007.pdf . Hope that I can find time to explain the lot. I suggest you first read the second article plus some questions about ACT-R here on CogSci.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2017-01-24. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

What I know is that there is evidence that the brain treats arithmetics very similarly as language. I also know that there is a [cortical area](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627304006786) more akin to encoding the sense of numerosity, which could be accessed while performing arithmetic calculations. However, I am no expert in the area and only know of some works done by some colleagues that I'll link here.

1. [Eye gaze reveals a fast, parallel extraction of the syntax of arithmetic formulas](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027712001357)
2. [When order matters: Last-come first-served effect in sequential arithmetic operations](http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635212500252)
3. [The cortical representation of simple mathematical expressions](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811912004016)

If you are interested, you should look at [Stanislas Dehaene's work](http://www.college-de-france.fr/site/stanislas-dehaene/index.htm). He has many papers on how the brain does math and how it also is able to naturally encode numbers.


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