Recent research found that the anxiety many students experience when anticipating doing mathematics work overlaps with parts of the pain which are stimulated in anticipation of pain. According to Sian Beilock, psychology professor at the University of Chicago, “For someone who has math anxiety, the anticipation of doing math prompts a similar brain reaction as when they experience pain — say, burning one’s hand on a hot stove.” Ian Lyons, a 2012 PhD psychology grad student of the same university added “The brain activation does not happen during math performance, suggesting that it is not the math itself that hurts; rather the anticipation of math is painful.” An experiment involved 14 math-anxious adults being hooked to an fMRI machine while doing math. Interestingly enough, these were not adults who suffered from an anxiety disorder.
The study volunteers were tested in an fMRI machine, which allowed researchers to examine brain activity as they did math. Volunteers were given mathematics equations to verify — for example, the validity of the following equation: (12 x 4) — 19 = 29. While in the fMRI scanner, subjects were also shown short word puzzles. For these puzzles, people saw a series of letters (for example: yrestym) and had to determine if reversing the order of the letters produced a correctly spelled English word.
The fMRI scans showed that the anticipation of math caused a response in the brain similar to physical pain. The higher a person’s anxiety about math, the more anticipating math activated the posterior insula — a fold of tissue located deep inside the brain just above the ear that is associated with registering direct threats to the body as well as the experience of pain. Interestingly, math anxiety levels were not associated with brain activity in the insula or in any other neural region when volunteers were doing math.
The study suggests that math anxiety may be a serious phoba with devastating consequences:
This latest study points to the value of seeing math anxiety not just as a proxy for poor math ability, but as an indication there can be a real, negative psychological reaction to the prospect of doing math. This reaction needs to be addressed like any other phobia, the researchers said. Rather than simply piling on math homework for students who are anxious about math, students need active help to become more comfortable with the subject…
