Many students have difficulty understanding the concept of lunar phase changes (LPCs) due to spatial ability problems such as perspective-taking (PT) and mental rotation (MR). Therefore, this study aimed to compare brain activity during PT and MR tasks while performing the LPC task to determine the involvement of PT and MR. This study measured…

The current study examined the neural correlates of spatial rotation in eight engineering undergraduates. Mastering engineering graphics requires students to mentally visualize in 3D and mentally rotate parts when developing 2D drawings. Students' spatial rotation skills play a significant role in learning and mastering engineering graphics.…

There are mixed results regarding the differentiation of neurofunctional correlates of spatial abilities. Previous studies employed complex environments or alternate memory tasks which could potentially add to inconsistencies across studies of navigation. To help elucidate the existing mixed findings, we conducted a study in a simplistic…

When people navigate, they use strategies dependent on one of two memory systems. The hippocampus-based spatial strategy consists of using multiple landmarks to create a cognitive map of the environment. In contrast, the caudate nucleus-based response strategy is based on the memorization of a series of turns. Importantly, response learners…

Differences exist between engineering and liberal arts students because of their educational backgrounds. Therefore, they solve problems differently. This study examined the brain activation of these two groups of students when they responded to 12 questions of verbal, numerical, or spatial intelligence. A total of 25 engineering and 25 liberal…

An important question regards how we use environmental boundaries to anchor spatial representations during navigation. Behavioral and neurophysiological models appear to provide conflicting predictions, and this question has been difficult to answer because of technical challenges with testing navigation in novel, large-scale, realistic spatial…

Gesture is recognized as part of and integral to cognition. The value of gesture for learning is contingent on how it gathers meaning against the ground of other relevant resources in the setting--in short, how the body is laminated onto the surrounding environment. With a focus on lamination, this paper formulates an integrated theory of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hemispheric effect of creative insight. This study used high-density ERPs to record participants' brain activity while they performed an insight task. Results showed that both insight solutions and incomprehension solutions elicited a more negative ERP deflection (N320~550) than noninsight solutions…

Recent neuroimaging evidence has suggested that expert dancers have stronger activation than novices in areas of parietal cortex while watching dance. The role of parietal cortex in the processing of spatial information could suggest that expert dancers are more attuned than novice dancers to spatial cues while watching dance. Instead of focusing…

fMRI was used to examine the differential effect of two problem-solving strategies. Participants were trained to use both a pictorial/spatial and a symbolic/algebraic strategy to solve word problems. While these two strategies activated similar cortical regions, a number of differences were noted in the level of activation. These differences…