Exploring the Relation Between Spatial Anxiety and Mathematics: Spatial Skills, Math Anxiety, and the Unbounded Number Line

Spatial skills are consistently associated with mathematical performance, and numerical magnitude representation may partially explainthis relationship. However, it remains unclear whether spatial anxiety is similarly associated with mathematics. We sampled221 adults and assessed spatial skills, spatial anxiety, unbounded number line estimation, math anxiety, and mathematical performance.Spatial skills were assessed using mental rotation and surface development tasks, while spatial anxiety and math anxietywere measured with self-report scales. We evaluated numerical magnitude knowledge using an unbounded number line estimationtask, and we measured mathematical performance across arithmetic, fractions, algebra, and percentages. Higher spatial anxietywas associated with poorer spatial skills and lower mathematical performance. Moreover, spatial skills accounted for part of theassociation between spatial anxiety and mathematics, whereas unbounded number line estimation did not, even after controllingfor math anxiety. These findings suggest that spatial anxiety may be associated with poorer mathematical performance without acorresponding association with numerical magnitude knowledge as measured by unbounded number line estimation. The resultshighlight potential differences in the cognitive operations underlying spatial skills and spatial anxiety in relation to mathematics.