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Brief Communication

Nature Neuroscience 7, 1193–1194 (1 November 2004) | doi:10.1038/nn1337

Behavioral equivalence, but not neural equivalence|[mdash]|neural evidence of alternative strategies in mathematical thinking

Myeong-Ho Sohn , Adam Goode , Kenneth R Koedinger , V Andrew Stenger , Kate Fissell , Cameron S Carter & John R Anderson

In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we investigated how people solve mathematically equivalent problems presented in two alternative formats: verbal, story format or symbolic, equation format. Although representation format had no effect on behavior, anterior prefrontal activation was greater in the story condition and posterior parietal activation was greater in the equation condition.