
Stephan E VogelUniversity of Graz | KFU Graz · Institute of Psychology
Stephan E Vogel
PhD
About
67
Publications
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Introduction
Stephan E Vogel currently works at the Institute of Psychology, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz. Stephan does research in Neuropsychology, Developmental Psychology and Cognitive Psychology.
Additional affiliations
April 2013 - October 2014
April 2009 - October 2013
Education
April 2009 - October 2013
October 2004 - April 2009
Publications
Publications (67)
Determining if a sequence of numbers is ordered or not is one of the fundamental aspects of numerical processing linked to concurrent and future arithmetic skills. While some studies have explored the neural underpinnings of order processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging, our understanding of electrophysiological correlates is compara...
In contrast to traditional expertise domains like chess and music, very little is known about the cognitive mechanisms in broader, more education-oriented domains like mathematics. This is particularly true for the role of mathematical experts’ knowledge for domain-specific information processing in memory as well as for domain-specific and domain-...
Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) offers a unique method to temporarily manipulate the activity of the stimulated brain region in a frequency-dependent manner. However, it is not clear if repetitive modulation of ongoing oscillatory activity with tACS over multiple days can induce changes in grey matter resting-state functional co...
Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) offers a unique method to temporarily manipulate the activity of the stimulated brain region in a frequency-dependent manner. However, it is not clear if repetitive modulation of ongoing oscillatory activity with tACS over multiple days can induce changes in resting-state functional connectivity....
Background
One frequent learning obstacle in mathematics is conceptual interference. However, the majority of research on conceptual interference has focused on science. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we examined the conceptual interference effects in both mathematics and science and the moderating influence of mathemat...
Dyskalkulie zeigt sich in Problemen im Zahlenverständnis, im Einprägen arithmetischer Fakten sowie im genauen und flüssigen Rechnen. Zahlreiche Kinder und Jugendliche sind davon betroffen. Oft leiden sie unter Angst vor Misserfolg und Schulversagen. Die AutorInnen erklären neurokognitive Modelle des Zahlenverständnisses und des Rechnens und erläute...
Efficient processing of absolute magnitude and relative order of numbers is key for arithmetic development. This longitudinal study tested 1) whether there is a developmental shift in the contribution of symbolic magnitude and order processing to arithmetic between Grades 1 and 2, and 2) whether the development of symbolic numerical abilities is ch...
In contrast to traditional expertise domains like chess and music, very little is known about the cognitive mechanisms in broader, more education-oriented domains like mathematics. This is particularly true for the role of mathematical experts’ knowledge for domain-specific and domain-general information processing in memory and creativity. In the...
Numerous studies have identified neurophysiological correlates of performing arithmetic in adults. For example, oscillatory electroencephalographic (EEG) patterns associated with retrieval and procedural strategies are well established. Whereas fact retrieval has been linked to enhanced left-hemispheric theta ERS (event-related synchronization), pr...
The inverse relationship between test anxiety and test performance is commonly explained by test-anxious students' tendency to worry about a test and the consequences of failing. However, other cognitive facets of test anxiety have been identified that could account for this link, including interference by test-irrelevant thoughts and lack of confi...
The development of numerical and arithmetic abilities constitutes a crucial cornerstone in our modern and educated societies. Difficulties to acquire these central skills can lead to severe consequences for an individual’s well-being and nation’s economy. In the present review, we describe our current broad understanding of the functional and struc...
What are the cognitive mechanisms supporting non-symbolic and symbolic order processing? Preliminary evidence suggests that non-symbolic and symbolic order processing are partly distinct constructs. The precise mechanisms supporting these skills, however, are still unclear. Moreover, predictive patterns may undergo dynamic developmental changes dur...
Over the last decades, interest in transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) has grown, as it might allow for causal investigations of the associations between cortical activity and cognition as well as to directly influence cognitive performance. The main objectives of the present work were to assess whether tES can enhance the acquisition and app...
When students learn a scientific theory that conflicts with their earlier naïve theories, the newer and more correct knowledge does not always replace the older and more incorrect knowledge. Both may coexist in a learner's long-term memory. Using a new speeded reasoning task, Shtulman and Valcarcel (2012) showed that naïve theories interfere with r...
Understanding the relationship between symbolic numerical abilities and individual differences in mathematical competencies has become a central research endeavor in the last years. Evidence on this foundational relationship is often based on two behavioral signatures of numerical magnitude and numerical order processing: the canonical and the reve...
Numerous studies have identified neurophysiological correlates of performing arithmeticin adults. For example, oscillatory electroencephalographic(EEG) patterns associated with retrieval and procedural strategies are well established. Whereas fact retrieval has beenlinked to enhancedleft-hemispherictheta ERS(event-related synchronization), procedur...
Single-digit multiplications are thought to be associated with different levels of interference because they show different degrees of feature overlap (i.e., digits) with previously learnt problems. Recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies provided evidence for this interference effect and showed that individual differences in arithmetic fact ret...
While the cognitive foundations for mathematical abilities have been investigated thoroughly in individuals with and without mathematical difficulties, our current knowledge about the cognitive abilities as well as the personality traits associated with mathematical expertise is still scarce. In this study we systematically investigated which domai...
Mathematical creativity is perceived as an increasingly important aspect of everyday life and, consequently, research has increased over the past decade. However, mathematical creativity has mainly been investigated in children and adolescents so far. Therefore, the first goal of the current study was to develop a mathematical creativity measure fo...
There is broad consensus on the assumption that adults solve single-digit multiplication problems almost exclusively by fact retrieval from memory. In contrast, there has been a long-standing debate on the cognitive processes involved in solving single-digit addition problems. This debate has evolved around two theoretical accounts. Proponents of a...
Understanding the relationship between symbolic numerical abilities and individual differences in mathematical competencies has become a central research endeavor in the last years. Evidence on this foundational relationship is often based on two behavioral signatures of numerical magnitude and numerical order processing: the canonical and the reve...
Dyscalculia is a neurodevelopmental disorder negatively affecting important aspects of maths learning. It results from a complex interplay of cognitive factors that are domain-specific (directly related to the domain of maths learning) or domain-general (related to different domains of learning). While current research has identified early predicto...
Children go to school to learn, and learning takes place in the brain. In the age period of formal schooling, a child’s brain is still undergoing major developmental changes. For these reasons, neuroscience (the study of the brain) and education are closely connected. Learning is possible because the brain is plastic: plasticity refers to the capac...
Neuromyths have been discussed to detrimentally affect educational practice but the evidence for this assumption is still very scarce. We investigated whether 255 student-teachers’ beliefs in neuromyths are related to their academic achievement (overall grade point averages and 1st year practical courses). Believing or rejecting neuromyths that mak...
How much is 2 × 4? Sounds like an easy question, but have you ever thought about how you solve that problem? In this article you will learn about two different strategies that we use to solve arithmetic problems. You will also get to know the different brain areas—like the intraparietal sulcus—that work together when you use these different strateg...
Previously conducted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies on the neuroanatomical correlates of mathematical abilities and competencies have several methodological limitations. Besides small sample sizes, the majority of these studies have employed voxel-based morphometry (VBM)—a method that, although it is easy to implement, has some...
There is broad consensus that adults solve single-digit multiplication problems almost exclusively by fact retrieval (i.e., retrieval of the solution from an arithmetic fact network). In contrast, there has been a long-standing debate on the cognitive processes involved in solving single-digit addition problems. This debate has evolved around two t...
Behavioural and neuroimaging studies have recently demonstrated that symbolic numerical order processing (i.e., deciding whether numbers are in an increasing/decreasing sequence or not) may engages different cognitive mechanisms and brain regions compared to symbolic numerical magnitude processing (e.g., deciding which of two numerals is larger). B...
How are number symbols (e.g., Arabic digits) represented in the brain? Functional resonance imaging adaptation (fMRI‐A) research has indicated that the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) exhibits a decrease in activation with the repeated presentation of the same number, that is followed by a rebound effect with the presentation of a new number. This rebou...
Behavioral and neuroimaging studies have recently demonstrated that symbolic numerical order processing (i.e., deciding whether numbers are in an increasing/decreasing sequence or not) may engages different cognitive mechanisms and brain regions compared to symbolic numerical magnitude processing (e.g., deciding which of two numerals is larger). Be...
Single-digit multiplications are mainly solved by memory retrieval. However, these problems are also prone to errors due to systematic interference (i.e., co-activation of interconnected but incorrect solutions). Semantic control processes are crucial to overcome this type of interference and to retrieve the correct information. Previous research s...
Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung (in press):
Der Transfer von neurowissenschaftlichen Befunden in die schulische Praxis wurde begleitet von der Entstehung von Fehlkonzepten über das menschliche Gehirn, sogenannte Neuromythen. Neuromythen sind unter Lehrkräften weltweit verbreitet. Unklar ist, ob Neuromythen bereits zu Beginn des Lehramtsstudiums b...
Within children’s multiplication fact retrieval, performance can be influenced by various effects, such as the well-known problem size effect (i.e., smaller problems are solved faster and more accurately) and the more recent interference effect (i.e., the quality of memory representations of problems depends on previously learned problems; the more...
Recent findings have demonstrated that numerical order processing (i.e., the application of knowledge that numbers are organized in a sequence) constitutes a unique and reliable predictor of arithmetic performance. The present work investigated two central questions to further our understanding of numerical order processing and its relationship to...
Math anxiety (MA) affects students in various countries and across educational levels. Here, we first evaluated a German adaptation of the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS G). The AMAS G was administered to 341 university students as part of a larger test battery, including the assessment of intelligence facets (numerical, figural, verbal) and...
A small but growing body of evidence suggests a link between individual differences in processing the order of numerical symbols (e.g., deciding whether a set of digits is arranged in ascending/descending order or not) and arithmetic achievement. However, the reliability of behavioral correlates measuring symbolic and non-symbolic numerical order p...
Dyskalkulie bezeichnet ein mangelhaftes oder falsches Verständnis von Mengen, Zahlen und mathematischen Operationen. Zahlreiche SchülerInnen, Kinder wie Jugendliche, sind davon betroffen. Oft leiden diese Kinder unter Angst vor Misserfolg und Schulversagen. Die Autorinnen erklären neurokognitive Modelle des Zahlenverständnisses und des Rechnens und...
A growing body of evidence from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging adaptation (fMRIa) has implicated the left intraparietal sulcus (IPS) as a crucial brain region representing the semantic meaning of number symbols. However, it is currently unknown to what extent the left IPS brain activity can be generalized across modalities (e.g., Arabic digi...
The last several years have seen steady growth in research on the cognitive and neuronal mechanisms underlying how numbers are represented as part of ordered sequences. In the present review, we synthesize what is currently known about numerical ordinality from behavioral and neuroimaging research, point out major gaps in our current knowledge, and...
The ability to use numerical information in different contexts is a major goal of mathematics education. In health risk communication, outcomes of a medical condition are frequently expressed in probabilities. Difficulties to accurately represent probability information can result in unfavourable medical decisions. To support individuals with low-n...
The way the human brain constructs representations of numerical symbols is poorly understood. While increasing evidence from neuroimaging studies has indicated that the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) becomes increasingly specialized for symbolic numerical mag-nitude representation over developmental time, the extent to which these changes are associate...
It is well established that, when comparing nonsymbolic magnitudes (e.g., dot arrays), adults can use both numerical (i.e., the number of items) and nonnumerical (density, total surface areas, etc.) magnitudes. It is less clear which of these magnitudes is more salient or processed more automatically. In this fMRI study, we used a nonsymbolic compa...
This volume examines the “New Wave” of research in cognitive neuroscience that has developed primarily in the last decade. It is divided into four sections. The first section looks at emotion and how it relates to perception and attention, as well as the link between emotion and cognition. It also discusses genetic and developmental approaches to e...
How are numerical and non-numerical magnitude processed in the brain? Brain imaging research, primarily using comparison paradigms (i.e. judging which of two magnitudes is larger), has provided strong evidence demonstrating that the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) is a key region for processing both numerical (e.g. Arabic numerals, arrays of dots) and n...
The ability to process the numerical magnitude of sets of items has been characterized in many animal species. Neuroimaging data have associated this ability to represent nonsymbolic numerical magnitudes (e.g., arrays of dots) with activity in the bilateral parietal lobes. Yet the quantitative abilities of humans are not limited to processing the n...
Zusammenfassung: Numerische Kenntnisse bilden ein wichtiges Fundament fur die schulische und berufliche Entwicklung. Viele Kinder leiden jedoch unter grosen Schwierigkeiten beim Erlernen numerischer Kompetenzen und werden oft mit einer «entwicklungsbedingten Dyskalkulie» diagnostiziert. Eine wachsende Anzahl von Studien mit Hilfe bildgebender Verfa...
Ordinality is – beyond numerical magnitude (i.e., quantity) – an important characteristic of the number system. There is converging empirical evidence that (intra)parietal brain regions mediate number magnitude processing. Furthermore, recent findings suggest that the human intraparietal sulcus (IPS) supports magnitude and ordinality in a domain-ge...
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies investigating the neural mechanisms underlying developmental dyscalculia are scarce and results are thus far inconclusive. Main aim of the present study is to investigate the neural correlates of nonsymbolic number magnitude processing in children with and without dyscalculia.
18 children (9 with...
Aim of this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was to dissociate normal aging and minimal cognitive impairment (MCI) concerning magnitude processing and interference control. We examined the neural correlates of a numerical Stroop task in elderly individuals with and without MCI. Fifteen elderly participants (six patients with MCI a...
This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study systematically investigates whether there is a neurofunctional overlap of nonsymbolic numerical and spatial cognition in (intra)parietal regions in children and adults. The study also explores the association between finger use and (nonsymbolic) number processing across development. Twenty-fou...