Mathematical expertise: the role of domain-specific knowledge for memory and creativity
Michaela A. Meier, Franz Gross, Stephan E. Vogel, Roland H. Grabner
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Source: Crossref
Published: Aug 2, 2023
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-39309-w
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Abstract 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-general creativity. In the present work, we compared 115 experts in mathematics with 109 gender, age, and educational level matched novices in their performance in (a) a newly developed mathematical memory task requiring encoding and recall of structured and unstructured information and (b) tasks drawing either on mathematical or on domain-general creativity. Consistent with other expertise domains, experts in mathematics (compared to novices) showed superior short-term memory capacity for complex domain-specific material when presented in a structured, meaningful way. Further, experts exhibited higher mathematical creativity than novices, but did not differ from them in their domain-general creativity. Both lines of findings demonstrate the importance of experts’ knowledge base in processing domain-specific material and provide new insights into the characteristics of mathematical expertise.
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