The abacus, also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool that was in use in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the written Arabic numeral system. The exact origin of the abacus is still unknown. The abacus essentially consists of a number of rows of movable beads or other objects, which represent digits.

By learning how to calculate with abacus, one can improve one’s mental calculation which becomes faster and more accurate in doing large number calculations. Abacus based mental calculation (AMC) was derived from the abacus which means doing calculation, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, in mind with an imagined abacus. It is a high-level cognitive skill that runs through calculations with an effective algorithm. People doing long-term AMC training show higher numerical memory capacity and have more effectively connected neural pathways. They are able to retrieve memory to deal with complex processes to calculate. The processing of AMC involves both the visuospatial and visuomotor processing which generate the visual abacus and perform the movement of the imaginary bead. Since the only thing needed to be remembered is the final position of beads, it takes less memory and less computation time.