Brain potentials reveal audiovisual integration in bilinguals on arithmetic fact retrieval

There is an increasing number of empirical evidence claiming that internal finger-based number representations affect numerical and arithmetical processing in both children and adults. However, relatively little is known about the online integration between explicit finger-based number representations and verbal number words during calculation. To explore such integration in Chinese monolinguals and Chinese-Spanish bilinguals, we designed an arithmetical correctness judgment paradigm with multimodal inputs where finger representations were either in symbolic form or in iconic form. Data from event-related potentials revealed that in both groups, symbolic finger representations were tightly attached to Chinese during the access to arithmetic facts. Furthermore, iconic finger representations were integrated into both Chinese and Spanish in bilinguals, thus serving the retrieval of arithmetic facts. The present results provide complementary evidence to the multisensory integration in the context of numerical cognition.