The Influence of verbalization on the pattern of cortical activation during mental arithmetic

42 young healthy adults participated in the fMRI study. The study comprised two functional sessions. In the first session, subtraction and multiplication problems were presented in an event-related design, and in the second functional session, multiplications were presented in two formats, as Arabic numerals and as written number words, in an event-related design. The individual's habitual use of visualization and verbalization during mental arithmetic was assessed by a short self-report assessment.We observed in both functional sessions that the use of verbalization predicts activation in brain areas associated with language (supramarginal gyrus) and auditory processing (Heschl's gyrus, Rolandic operculum). However, we found no modulation of activation in the left AG as a function of verbalization.Our results confirm that strong verbalizers use mental speech as a form of mental imagination more strongly than weak verbalizers. Moreover, our results suggest that the left AG has no specific affinity to the verbal domain and subserves number processing in a modality-general way.As individuals differ with regard to their potentials, habits and preferences, they differ in their approach to complex problems, and the degree to which they employ different cognitive domains in solving a complex problem. It is unclear, however, how individual preferences in problem solving are reflected in the brain. We will focus here on the distinction between visual and verbal cognitive styles because this distinction has repeatedly been used to categorize solution alternatives, ability profiles and processing differences in mathematics and arithmetic processing [1-3].A cognitive style is assumed to be a relatively stable characteristic that describes how an individual processes information, that is, how an individual thinks, perceives, and remembers [4]. Verbalizers report to repeat information during thinking verbally, whereas visualizers claim to represent information during thinking pi