Visual comparisons are pervasive in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instruction and practice. In previous work, adults' visual comparisons of simple stimuli were faster and more accurate when the layout of a display facilitated alignment of corresponding elements--the "spatial alignment principle" (Matlen et al.,…

In spoken languages, children acquire locative terms in a cross-linguistically stable order. Terms similar in meaning to in and on emerge earlier than those similar to "front" and "behind," followed by "left" and "right." This order has been attributed to the complexity of the relations expressed by…

Driving at an inappropriate speed is a major accident cause in the EU. Understanding the underlying sensory mechanisms can help to reduce speed and increase traffic safety. The present study investigated the effect of visuospatial stimuli on speed perception using an adaptive countermeasure to speeding based on a manipulation of optic flow. We…

Visual comparison is a key process in everyday learning and reasoning. Recent research has discovered the spatial alignment principle, based on the broader framework of structure-mapping theory in comparison. According to the spatial alignment principle, visual comparison is more efficient when the figures being compared are arranged in…

Eye-tracking procedures generate copious process data that could be valuable in establishing the response processes component of modern validity theory. However, there is a lack of tools for assessing and visualizing response processes using process data such as eye-tracking fixation sequences, especially those suitable for young children. This…

This experiment tests the age at which left-to-right spatial associations found in infancy shift to culture-specific spatial biases in later childhood, for both numerical and non-numerical information. Children ages 1-5 years (N = 320) were tested within an eye-tracking paradigm which required passive viewing of a video portraying a spatial…

There has been considerable focus on investigating age-related memory changes in cognitively healthy older adults, in the absence of neurodegenerative disorders. Previous studies have reported age-related domain-specific changes in older adults, showing increased difficulty encoding and processing object information but minimal to no impairment in…

Humans have a uniquely sophisticated ability to see past superficial features and to understand the relational structure of the world around us. This ability often requires that we compare structures, finding commonalities and differences across visual depictions that are arranged in space, such as maps, graphs, or diagrams. Although such visual…

The hippocampus has long been recognized as important for the formation of long-term memory. Recent work has suggested that the hippocampus might also be important for certain kinds of spatial operations, as in constructing scenes, shifting perspective, or perceiving the geometry of scenes and their boundaries. We explored this proposal using a…

An ability to detect the common location of multisensory stimulation is essential for us to perceive a coherent environment, to represent the interface between the body and the external world, and to act on sensory information. Regarding the tactile environment "at hand", we need to represent somatosensory stimuli impinging on the skin…

To examine how individuals with visual impairments understand space and the way they develop cognitive maps, we studied the differences in cognitive maps resulting from different methods and tools for spatial coding in large geographical spaces. We examined the ability of 21 blind individuals to create cognitive maps of routes in unfamiliar areas…

Across languages, children produce locative "back" earlier and more frequently than "front," but the reasons for this asymmetry are unclear. On a "semantic misanalysis" explanation, early meanings for "front" and "back" are nonadult (nongeometric), and rely on notions of visibility and occlusion…

While most typically developing (TD) participants have a coarse-to-fine processing style, people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) seem to be less globally and more locally biased when processing visual information. The stimulus-specific spatial frequency content might be directly relevant to determine this temporal hierarchy of visual…

Working memory is a basic cognitive process that predicts higher-level skills. A central question in theories of working memory development is the generality of the mechanisms proposed to explain improvements in performance. Prior theories have been closely tied to particular tasks and/or age groups, limiting their generalizability. The cognitive…

Two experiments investigated how people use buildings and street configurations to reorient in large-scale environments. In immersive virtual environments, participants learned objects' locations in an intersection consisting of 4 streets. The objects' locations were specified by 2 cues: a building and/or the street configuration. During the test,…