The effect of computer-assisted instruction on spatial problem solving skills was examined in this study. Subjects were fifth grade students from nine classes, who were divided into three treatment groups in a nonrandom fashion: (1) computer-assisted group, which used computer software designed to help students improve spatial problem solving…

Gender differences were examined on three computer-administered spatial processing tasks: (1) the Intercept task, requiring processing dynamic or moving figures; (2) the mental rotation test, employing rotated asymmetric polygons; and (3) the integrating details test, in which subjects performed a complex visual synthesis. Participants were about…

A program of research was conducted to study transitions from preoperational to concrete operational forms of spatial imagery (area 1), to compare results from spatial imagery studies based on open-ended measures (such as drawings) with results based on reaction time measures (area 2), and to study anticipatory imagery in the contexts of memory…

This study was designed to examine effects that access to manipulatives in science instruction have with respect to the development of spatial conceptual abilities and whether the effects were different for males and females. A secondary purpose of this investigation was to examine what relationship sex and access to manipulatives in conjunction…

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…

An aptitude-strategy interaction in linear syllogistic reasoning was tested on 144 undergraduate and graduate students of both sexes. It was hypothesized that the efficiency of each of four alternative strategies--control, visual, algorithmic, and mixed--would depend upon the subjects' pattern of verbal and spatial abilities. Two tests of verbal…

Research is reviewed on human spatial cognition in real, everyday settings and is organized into five empirical categories: age, familiarity, gender, class and culture, and physical components of settings. (Author/DB)

Examines Japanese and American children's styles of processing computerized geometric matrices. Hypothesizes cultural differences for response latencies. Finds no difference in accuracy between the two groups but significant differences in response times for second- and fifth-graders. (MW)

Two experiments involving 112 college students, half male and half female, examined the spatial nature of mental-image rotation (MIR) tasks and the use of MIR in stereotypically male or female tasks. Results add to the evidence that instructional and stimulus effects may exacerbate or eliminate sex differences in spatial cognition. (SLD)

Thirty Native American children (mean age=10.3 years), 15 identified with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and 15 controls, were asked to recall places and objects in a task previously shown to be sensitive to memory skills in individuals with and without mental retardation. Children with FAS demonstrated a spatial but not an object memory impairment.…

Observation of 56 American Indian students in grades 9-10, including 45 Navajo speakers, during open-ended mathematical patterning exercises revealed that students did not produce typically symmetrical patterns and that their patterns demonstrated a deep command of transformational geometry. The influence of Navajo language and culture are…

Although deficits in visual attention are often postulated as an important component of many declines in cognitive processing and functional outcomes in older adults, surprisingly little emphasis has been placed on evaluating psychometric instruments with which individual differences in visual attention ability can be assessed. This article…

Verbal-to-spatial associations in working memory may index a core capacity for abstract information limited in the amount concurrently retained. However, what look like associative, abstract representations could instead reflect verbal and spatial codes held separately and then used in parallel. We investigated this issue in two experiments on…

It has been 20 years since Bever's (1982) and Strauss and Stavy's (1982) books on U-shaped functions in human development were published. The three target articles in this issue describe several old and new U-shaped functions and new theoretical explanations for their existence. In this article, the authors will comment on two aspects of U-shaped…

Background: Children with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) show behavioral abnormalities in gaze and face processing, but recent studies have indicated that normal activation of face-specific brain areas in response to faces is possible in this group. It is not clear whether the brain activity related to gaze processing is also normal in…