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Saloni Sameer Naik

@salonisameernaik.bsky.social

5 followers 6 following 14 posts

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Turns out being good at math isn't just about what's in your head, it's also about knowing where to look. 🧠👀

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

These results support a Visuospatial Skill account of algebraic reasoning. Mastering algebra involves learning to look at equations in clever ways.

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

And these strategic eye movements mattered for performance. Participants who showed a stronger Precedence Advantage in their eye movements were also more accurate at algebraic reasoning.

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

These results support a Visuospatial Skill account of algebraic reasoning. Mastering algebra involves learning to look at equations in clever ways.

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

… their eyes focused on key parts of their visual layout (i.e., Precedence Advantage) — but only if they were Algebra Knowers! Only experts' eyes fixated strategically on equations’ visual layout, and only when it mattered 🙌

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

But when they looked at the exact same equations while reasoning algebraically…

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

So what did participants’ eye movements reveal about the relationship between visual skill and algebraic expertise? When participants looked at the equations but weren’t reasoning algebraically (i.e., the Search task), nobody showed a Precedence Advantage.

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Our key measure: the "Precedence Advantage." If people use the visual layout of an equation to recover its structure, their eyes should be drawn strategically to the parts that encode the highest-precedence relations (e.g., multiplication over addition). So how would this change with expertise?

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Participants saw pairs of expressions and performed one of two tasks: (1) Algebra: "Are these expressions equivalent?" (2) Search: "Is this letter in the same spot in both?" Same visual stimuli, but only one task required algebraic reasoning.

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

First, everyone took a short assessment of algebraic precedence rules. This divided them into "Algebra Knowers," who had mastered rules like multiplication-before-addition, and "Algebra Non-Knowers," who had not. Then we tracked their eyes while they viewed algebraic expressions. 👀

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

We tested two competing possibilities: 🔹 Visuospatial Scaffold: Visual layout is a crutch for beginners that experts eventually outgrow 🔹 Visuospatial Skill: With expertise, people become *better* at using a visual layout, by learning where to look

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

So the written equations clearly matter. But how?

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Algebra is a paradigm case of abstract, structural reasoning. But we rarely do algebra entirely in our heads. We write equations on paper or a screen. And surprisingly small, mathematically-irrelevant tweaks to an equation's visual layout can change people’s reasoning.

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Saloni Sameer Naik @salonisameernaik.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Excited to share this preprint with my amazing co-authors @ryskin.bsky.social & @tylermarghetis.bsky.social ! 🎉 "Eye-tracking reveals the perceptual basis of algebraic expertise" How does becoming good at algebra change the way you look at equations? + × 👁️ Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...

osf.io

OSF

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