Academic interest in the field of mental calculation — after the invention of technology with extraordinary computing power — is primarily related to the fields of neuroscience and education. In neuroscience, the study of the activity occuring during calculation may have implications for broader understandings of the brain’s functionality. In education, efforts to understand the mental calculation processess may provide lessons for the improvement of mathematical education and societal numeracy.
Expanding the Understanding of the Brain
Neuroscience studies on experienced calculators performing calculations mentally reveal brain activity occurring in different regions of the brain compared to when calculation is performed by untrained individuals.
Improving Numeracy
Academic studies have shown a correlation between calculation training — whether Western or Eastern — and improved educational performance, with some studies indicating calculation performance produces an improvement in attention span, memory, or quantitative reasoning.
“Why do children dread mathematics? Because of the wrong approach. Because it is looked at as a subject.”
“Mathematics is a language. ”
“Wherever there is number, there is beauty.”
“You don’t have to be a mathematician to have a feel for numbers.”