Conditional automaticity in retrieving multiplication facts: Evidence from Chinese

Adults automatically retrieve multiplication facts in a number matching task, in which participants judge whether the target number is one of the two cue digits presented previously. They are slower in rejecting the number which is the sum or the product of cues than a neutral number. The present study explored, with Chinese adult participants, whether such automaticity in retrieving multiplication facts can be affected by experiential and experimental factors such as learning experience and task set. We classified cue digits into two categories: small number first (the ascending order) and large number first (the descending order), according to whether the smaller or larger digit was presented on the left of the other. Experiment 1 found that product numbers were more difficult to reject than non-product numbers. Moreover, the order of cues played a role in modulating the magnitude of the interference effect, with ascending order conditions having larger interference than descending order conditions. Experiment 2 added a task-irrelevant addition or subtraction sign between the two cues and replicated the pattern of effects in Experiment 1, although the interference effects were significantly reduced. Experiment 3 instructed participants to judge whether the target number was the sum of the two cue digits. No interference effect was found for the target that was the product of cues. These findings suggest that the retrieval of multiplication facts, albeit automatic, can be influenced by learning experience (cue order effects in Experiments 1 & 2), the compatibility of the cuing context with the stored template information (reduced interference effects across Experiments 1 & 2), and task set (elimination of interference effects in Experiment 3). Retrieving multiplication facts is therefore conditionally automatic.