Transfer effects of abacus training on cognition

The Chinese abacus was invented 1800 years ago as a piece of calculation equipment for economic education and support. The abacus no longer serves as an economic tool but has emerged as a powerful educational tool to promote individual development. It is not yet known, however, whether abacus training may lead to cognitive transfer in the individual development context. This transfer effect was investigated in the present study with a randomized controlled design centered on comparison against abacus training with cognitive training and English training. The final sample consisted of 343 vocational school/college students (55 males, mean age = 17.79 years, range: 14.17 to 24.67 years) whom completed the pre-test, the 52-h training session, and the post-test. Participants in each school or college were randomly assigned into three training groups based on their pre-test scores. Abacus training is shown to promote calculation and spatial abilities by comparison with English training, and to promote calculation ability and processing speed by comparison with cognitive training. Cognitive training shows transfer effect of spatial ability by comparison with English training. However, abacus training does not show pervasive transfer effect for any general cognitive abilities that do not typically involve numerical processing or visuospatial processing. These findings suggest a limited transfer effect of abacus training on cognitive development.