关键词: 数学焦虑, 符号数字, N170

Abstract: Mathematical anxiety impairs symbolic number processing, a foundational skill for mathematical achievement. However, the specific stages at which math anxiety exerts its influence—whether during early visual perception or later conceptual processing of Arabic numbers—remain poorly understood. This study aimed at enclosing which is the specific impaired cognitive component among high math-anxious (HMA) individuals, and further proposed that impairments in symbolic number processing among HMA people may originate during the pre-stimulus anticipation phase, characterized by reduced cognitive control, which in turn disrupts subsequent visual and conceptual processing stages. We hypothesized that HMA individuals would exhibit weakened anticipatory control, reflected in reduced P3 amplitude, leading to altered neural responses in both visual number recognition (N170) and number quantity representation (P2P). This theoretical perspective extends current models by emphasizing the proactive role of anticipatory mechanisms in MA-related deficits. A total of 454 university students were screened using the Shortened Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (sMARS) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), from which 58 (29 HMA, 29 LMA) were recruited for the study. Each participant performed three computerized tasks: non-number perception, number perception, and number conceptual processing, while 64-channel EEG data were recorded. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were analyzed for the anticipatory P3, visual N170, and conceptual P2P components. Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) was applied to decode task-related neural representations across time. Mediation models tested whether anticipatory P3 mediated the relationship between math anxiety group and subsequent N170/P2P amplitudes. Source localization was performed using sLORETA to localize the brain regions of the critical P3 component. Behavioral analyses revealed no significant main effect of math anxiety group on accuracy or reaction time, though a significant interaction between group and task type was observed in reaction time. ERP results showed that HMA participants exhibited significantly reduced N170 amplitudes during number perception, indicating impaired visual number recognition, and significantly enhanced P2P amplitudes across both number tasks, suggesting less precise quantity representation. Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) demonstrated that HMA individuals were slower and less accurate in discriminating between number and non-number stimuli, with significant group differences in decoding accuracy within specific time windows. Critically, mediation analysis revealed that anticipatory P3 amplitude fully mediated the effect of math anxiety group on both N170 and P2P amplitudes in the number perception task. A serial mediation model further indicated a significant path from math anxiety group → P3 → N170 → P2P. Source localization traced the P3 component to the intraparietal sulcus, implicating impaired emotion and cognitive control during anticipation as a key mechanism. This study revealed that math anxiety disrupts symbolic number processing across multiple cognitive and neural stages—beginning with anticipatory control, extending to visual recognition, and affecting later quantity representation. The findings provide novel evidence that these impairments are rooted in pre-stimulus cognitive-emotional dysregulation, rather than being limited to post-stimulus processing stages. These findings extend existing theoretical models by emphasizing the role of anticipatory mechanisms and offer new targets for interventions aimed at improving early attentional and emotional regulation in math-anxious individuals.