This paper presents the results of a study of the structural development of young students' drawings of arrays, and in particular, the significance of using lines instead of drawing individual squares. Students' array drawings were classified on basis of numerical properties, and perceived structural similarities that reflected the spatial…

Reported are research findings that (1) illustrate the importance of primary spatial orientation for children's and adults' use of symbolic spatial skills and (2) indicate the importance of the distinction between primary and secondary spatial orientation. At least two major ways exist in which humans gather and use spatial information. The…

A 2-part investigation was conducted to examine the ways children resolve the inherent ambiguity of spatial descriptions in terms of cues indicated by the three constituents of spatial propositions: predicate, referent, and relatum. In the first study, it was hypothesized that certain objects, structural markers, and definite articles accompanying…

To identify the role of the child's own action in the development of the ability to coordinate perspectives, a spatial localization task was presented to 2 groups of children: 16 children between 18 and 24 months old, and 16 children between 42 and 48 months old. A reward was hidden randomly in one of two identical left-right locations on a…

Data obtained under naturalistic conditions do not support the notion of a close fit between the growth of geometric concepts during the concrete operational period and "realism" in art. Realism here refers to the ability to portray the objective proportions of a figure, to coordinate spatial relations and distances, and to represent a…

Twelve learning disabled (9-12 years old) boys were identified according to special class placement, WISC-R (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised) and performance measures. A group demonstrating a verbal WISC-R deficit was sex- and age-matched with a normal group. Electroencephalograms (EEGs) were collected while these individuals…

This paper reports two related experiments, the first investigating whether children 3-7 years old demonstrate Flavell's Level-2 perspective-taking in a cognitively simple task, and the second re-examining children's performance on a task comparable to the Piagetian 3-mountain perspective-taking task. The first experiment involved a task which…

Two experiments involving 42 students from the Model Secondary School for the Deaf investigated both the visual and tactile components in the processing of spatial information. Test measures used were the Figures Rotations Test, Group Embedded Figures Test, and Tactile Rotations Test. The study suggested that spatial reasoning is a determining…

This study examined the relationships between spatial ability, mathematics achievement, and sex for students in grades 2-7. Four spatial tests (embedded figures, serial integration, coordination of viewpoints, and rotation and development of surfaces) were used to measure spatial ability; sex and mathematics achievement, as measured by the Iowa…

The purpose of this study was to attempt to train the horizontality concept in a group of first graders who were non-operational on the horizontality concept but transitional on what Piaget has termed the precursor concepts of distance and length conservation. There were two groups of subjects (training and control), all of whom had failed a…

Learning style is a composite of those elements that serve as a relatively stable indicator of how a learner perceives, interacts with, and responds to the learning environment. This paper presents quantitative data related to learning styles and qualitative data related to learning environments which could suggest changes in biology courses and…

This investigation used a clinical interview technique to identify the difficulties of kindergarten children who are unable to develop models or representations of simple arithmetic story problems. It is hypothesized that effective human problem solvers first generate some type of "physical model" and use this model to create a…

This longitudinal study was designed to investigate the nature and extent of sex differences in both verbal and spatial abilities among black and white children. Six scales of early cognitive functioning were administered at three times (at 8 months, 4 years and 7 years) to 3,013 children. Two major hypotheses were examined: (1) if cognitive…

Recent efforts have been made to develop more age-appropriate intelligence measures for the elderly to determine the nature of age differences and changes in adult cognitive development. Spatial and reasoning performances of young, young-old and old-old individuals were compared on traditional versus familiar and presumably more meaningful…

This document contains five symposium papers exploring sex differences in cognition. The first paper defines the purposes of the study, i.e., to examine which cognitive performance factors are related to sex differences, and to investigate possible biological, social, and psychological factors affecting developmental sex differences. The second…