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Subscribe to RSSTo the math-minded among us, tackling something like the Pythagorean theorem is easy, even fun. To others, anything with numbers and letter causes sweating, teeth gnashing, broken pencils, and a general feeling of dread. Now, a new study shows when number-phobic people anticipate math, their brains believe they are feeling physical pain.
“People often walk around talking about how awful math is,” says Sian Beilock, psychology professor at the University of Chicago and author of the book, “Choke: What The Secrets Of The Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To.”
“In our society it is common to hate math," Beilock says. "You don’t hear people walking around bragging about how they can’t read.”
Beilock and doctoral student Ian Lyons asked 14 adults with math anxiety to verify the results of an equation such as (a*b) −c = d or work on word puzzles -- where subjects discerned whether a string of letters makes an English word if the spelling is reversed --while in a fMRI. Beilock and Lyons found when people with high levels of math anxiety anticipated equations, their brain reacted much like they would if they were in physical pain. The higher the person's anxiety, the more the posterior insula flashed with activity. (The posterior insula is what springs into action when one burns her hand or stubs her toe.) The researchers also found activation in the cingulate cortex, which also serves in the brain’s pain center.
“We have this evolutionary ancient, pain system that responds when we burn our hands on the stove and are in physical pain … when people are anxious and anticipating the math test, (our brains) activate the same system,” Beilock explains.
Beilock, who views math positively as a challenge and puzzle, was surprised to learn that people reacted as if they were in pain only when they anticipated math, not while working on the equations.
“We weren’t necessarily expecting to see the activation in the anticipation and thought that was interesting,” Beilock says. She believes that when people actually started the math problems, the pain and anxiety subsided because they focused on the task at hand.
While people don’t actually feel pain—there aren’t any mysterious burning or pricking sensations while thinking about numbers—the brain reacts as if the hand is being burned.
“The brain isn’t making a clear distinction (between physical and mental pain),” she says. “People talk about math as if it is actually painful.” And it is. Because of this, people anticipating math might also feel the same physiological symptoms that a person who stubbed her toe, such as sweaty palms and increased heart rates.
Some of these unpleasant math side effects can be reduced. Beilock has evidence that if math anxious people spend 10 minutes writing about their fears, they purge their anxiety and perform better—and reduce any physical reactions.
The paper appears in the online journal PLOS ONE.
Related:
Bad at math -- or is it dyscalculia?
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In comes pharma companies with a new shiny red pill to save the day.
I was the finest example of math anxiety, hell, I even had headaches. Until I found THE SOLUTION, learn the concepts first.
Find out exactly what are you doing, lets say: 1/2 * 4 = 2 (you are halving it, so if you punch the wrong keys in your calculator, you will anticipate the result because you know what are you doing)
Calculus, get the concept FIRST. You are looking at finding the area or the lenght of something bigger and curved. Expect to find that and it will PAY $$ to know that, trust me. I know :)
I had to go about it in just the opposite way - once I realized I didn't HAVE to understand the concepts, I was able to practice working the problems, and then I only needed to recognize what type of problem it was to be able to solve it. That worked for me in algebra, trig, calculus, physics, quantitative analysis, etc...then with time, I could connect the problem with the application. Probably not the most efficient way, but...
I really hadn't heard of people hating math until I came to America.
....a lot of priveleged folks here HATE a lot of things, but mostly they hate those that aren't JUST LIKE THEM.
I don't think we teach it very well here. It's all about solving equations instead of using those equations to solve problems, which is inherently more interesting.
"If I want to buy a $20K car over 5 yrs, what will the total cost be at 7% interest?"
"If I want to paint my house, how many gallon-cans will I need?"
People need to see the application to care about the math.
I agree AG99, I hate all this abstract log(5x!^13)-52cats nonsense. When applied, even to something I may not use in the future, it just seems to make more sense to me.
Math is taught very well in PHYSICS classes. Take a physics class...you will actually learn why math was invented.
Not necessarily. As you get into Calculus, you can see and appreciate the elegance and beauty in the structure of some proofs. in fact, there as a time when I thought some math should be regarded as art.
Well doesn't this explain alot? My head began to hurt just reading this.
Just contemplating abstract math or algebra problems causes me to become anxious. Trying to do them makes my brain melt. Two years of high school algebra and one of geometry did nothing to alleviate this. And that ws 40+ years ago! Guess it's too late for me now....lol
I love math, it made sense and had concrete reasons why you were wrong or right. I hate English because it always depended on the teacher what was good grammar or not, or good use of commas. SO FRUSTRATING! Math is peace, and word problems are just easy math with a random worthless tidbit thrown in to throw you off.
Math and Science ftw!
I was the finest example of math anxiety, hell, I even had headaches. Until I found THE SOLUTION, learn the concepts first.
Find out exactly what are you doing, lets say: 1/2 * 4 = 2 (you are halving it, so if you punch the wrong keys in your calculator, you will anticipate the result because you know what are you doing)
Calculus, get the concept FIRST. You are looking at finding the area or the lenght of something bigger and curved. Expect to find that and it will PAY $$ to know that, trust me. I know :)
Oh, this explains why Obama always looks like he has a headache. Dilemma solved.
That tool-making bird in another story is obviously smarter than either of the empty-headed character-lacking fools from which we're supposed to choose. I'm pretty sure that we'll find out soon that the bird can handle differential calculus.
I wonder if this study applies to other situations where humans may feel humiliated by an inability to accomplish some goal. For example, would a person's brain react the same if that person were illiterate and expected to read something? Perhaps its not just math that causes the brain to "feel pain" - maybe its a fear of failure, or embarrassment, in general.
Yes ..yes it does
My head started hurting just seeing the title of this article. I do not like, have trouble getting, and will never enjoy math unfortunately. It keeps a person from having a really good job too, because it seems all well-paying jobs involve dealing with numbers extensively. I just have never gotten it.
I was taking a series of stress tests, and one was math. My blood pressure went down, actually. I love math, especially discrete math (whole numbers, networks, etc.).
I think we all do calculus in our heads when we merge onto the freeway, adjusting our rate of acceleration to match the other lanes of traffic.
Even other animals do it. I remember riding my bike to work through an Indian reservation in Arizona - lots of loose dogs would chase me. One in particular would start from his house and he was smart enough to "lead"me - that is, he would take into account my speed and pick an intercept point in front and run towards that point. I had to take that into account and accelerate before we met in order to throw off his estimate. Other dogs acted more like conservative republicans - they ran straight towards me; the concept of related rates (differential calculus) was totally beyond their little fuzzy brains.