Strategy use, the development of automaticity, and working memory involvement in complex multiplication

Abstract

Participants practiced a set of complex multiplication problems (e.g., 3 x 18) in a pre-/postpractice design. Before, during, and after practice, the participants gave self-reports of problem-solving strategies. At prepractice, the most common strategy was a mental version of the standard multidigit algorithm, and dual tasks revealed that working memory load was high and heavier for problems solved via nonretrieval strategies. After practice, retrieval was used almost exclusively, and participant variability, automaticity level of problems (proportion of trials on which retrieval was used over the entire experiment), and error rates were significant predictors of problem-solving latencies. Practice reduced working memory involvement to minimal levels, and there was no relationship between automaticity level and working memory load. The commonalities between the present findings and findings related to automaticity development in simple arithmetic are discussed.