Joanna Lewis¹, Caterina Azzarello¹, Gulden Karakok¹, Molly Jameson², Kristin Kang¹, Sara Rohani¹, Katherine Morrison¹; ¹University of Northern Colorado, ²University of Strathclyde

Math anxiety (MA) is a known factor that increases cognitive load during mathematical operations, disrupts attentional control, and can impair performance (Ashcraft & Krause, 2007). We examined the relationship between MA (assessed through a math disposition survey) and visual attention during an arithmetic task in pre-service elementary teachers enrolled in a math content course. Participants completed a two-digit pair addition task in the SR EyeLink 1000+ at the beginning and end of the semester. Students either received an anxiety-targeted self-regulation intervention or served as the baseline comparison group. Across conditions, participants showed high accuracy and improved arithmetic task efficiency over time. Eye-movement patterns indicated reduced cognitive load over the semester: fixation count, fixation duration, and blink duration all decreased, reflecting more efficient visual information sampling during mental mathematical operations. MA influenced several aspects of eye-movement behavior. Individuals with high MA exhibited greater variability in fixation duration and increased total dwell time, along with reduced accuracy gains relative to low-MA students. These results align with attentional control theories, which suggest that anxiety increases cognitive effort and interferes with efficient deployment of attention despite similar arithmetic performance (Calvo & Avero, 2002; Hunt et al., 2015). Pupillometry revealed reduced variability in pupil dilation for students in the intervention condition, a pattern consistent with evidence linking pupil dynamics to cognitive workload (Hepsomali et al., 2019). This suggests that the intervention may modestly impact effort-related aspects of visual processing. Our findings highlight the effects of MA on visual processing and cognitive effort during arithmetic tasks and indicate that the math course experience enhances eye-movement efficiency. While the self-regulation intervention had limited efficacy in altering cognitive load eye-movement markers, despite changes in reported MA, the results highlight the relationship between MA and oculomotor behaviors during mathematical operations.

Acknowledgements: NSF Award #2235588