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As an ancient calculation method, the calculation function of abacus arithmetic has been gradually substituted by modern technologies, such as electronic calculator, and computer. Meanwhile, more and more psychologist and educationist emphasize the developmental function of abacus arithmetic. In order to make full use of abacus arithmetic in the field of education and cognitive development, this study attempts to investigate the cognitive process of abacus arithmetic.The study starts from the literature review about abacus arithmetic, mental arithmetic, and cognitive science. Based on these studies, the present study proposes a psychological model of abacus arithmetic, and then extends it to the model of cognitive process by including the external factors.To validate the model and test the hypotheses, this study designs a 3×3×4 mixed experiment. The independent variables are level of expertise, level of difficult, and type of operation. The dependent variables are think-aloud protocols, use frequency of each method, mistakes, and satisfaction. The experiment invited 36 participants in total. 12 participants are professional high school students, the other 12 participants are ordinary high school students, and the rest 12 participants are bank clerks.The results of this study indicate that: (1) retrieval method, procedure method, and mental arithmetic method are three main calculation methods of abacus arithmetic, each of them has some variations; (2) experts tend to use retrieval method, while novices tend to use mental arithmetic method; (3) retrieval method and mental arithmetic method are applied more for simple operations, while procedure method is applied more for complicated operations; (4) retrieval method and mental arithmetic method are applied more for addition problems, while procedure method is applied more for subtraction problems.
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