This skill is called AMC, which can be acquired through intensive training.
Importantly, skilled abacus players can perform fast and accurate arithmetic operations not only with the use of a physical abacus but also by the manipulation of an imaginary abacus in the mind ( Frank and Barner, 2012). Abacus, a traditional calculation device that represents numbers by the visuospatial locations of beads ( Figure 1), has been widely used in Asian countries to facilitate arithmetic operations including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and even root calculations. Here, we focus on abacus-based mental calculation (AMC), a specific skill utilized for mental calculations. Other interventions for improving cognitive functions should be pursued. To date, the effectiveness of many existing training programs remains inconclusive. In addition, some recent meta-analyses and reviews differ in their conclusions on the beneficial effects of many training programs including working memory training ( Au et al., 2015 Melby-Lervåg et al., 2016), video-game training ( Wang et al., 2016 Sala and Gobet, 2019), music learning ( Benz et al., 2016 Sala and Gobet, 2017) and chess playing ( Sala and Gobet, 2016, 2017). Although the findings are promising, it should be noticed that many existing training programs are constrained by the fact that they are conducted under controlled laboratory settings, which may pose difficulties in generalizing the obtained findings to broader contexts and real-world situations ( Klingberg, 2010). Moreover, all the above cognitive training programs have been reported to produce functional and structural changes in the brain that may provide a neurophysiological basis for the cognitive transfer ( Klingberg, 2010 Gong et al., 2015 Benz et al., 2016 Sohn et al., 2017). For instance, working memory training has been suggested to improve performance in untrained working memory ( Holmes et al., 2009) video-game training has been reported to improve performance in visual attention and executive control ( Strobach et al., 2012 Belchior et al., 2013) musical training and chess or go games playing that require a broad range of cognitive skills, have been found associated with superior performance in multiple cognitive tasks including working memory, executive control and reasoning ( Kim et al., 2014 Benz et al., 2016 Burgoyne et al., 2016 Sala et al., 2017). Many cognitive training programs have been shown to improve cognitive abilities ( Diamond and Lee, 2011 Diamond, 2013). Research on the impacts of cognitive training on cognition and brain systems has long been of great interest to cognitive neuroscientists over the last decades.
Implications for future research are provided. Still, caution is needed when extend the conclusions to a more general situation. Some of the neural changes can explain the training-induced cognitive enhancements.
Besides, the training can result in functional and anatomical neural changes that are largely located within the frontal-parietal and occipital-temporal brain regions. Taken together, our review of the existing literature suggests that AMC training has the potential to enhance various cognitive skills including mathematics, working memory and numerical magnitude processing. Here, findings from previous behavioral and neuroimaging studies about AMC experts as well as children and adults receiving AMC training are reviewed and discussed. This review study aims to provide an updated overview of important findings in this fast-growing research field. Due to this extraordinary calculation ability in AMC users, there is an expanding literature investigating the effects of AMC training on cognition and brain systems. Skilled abacus users, who have acquired the ability of abacus-based mental calculation (AMC), can perform fast and accurate calculations by manipulating an imaginary abacus in mind.
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