A study tested the possibility that children 16-24 months old and 6-7 years old can code distance without the use of landmarks. Younger children sat with their mothers at the side of a sandbox and watched the experimenter hide a toy in the sand. After being distracted, the children looked for the toy in the box. Nine trials were used, with toys…

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…

As the viewer watches the opening credits for the program "Entertainment Tonight," the screen comes to life with rotating shapes and spinning geometric patterns. One has the sense of travelling on an imaginary voyage through space. Many of the computer generated displays common now on television use such visual devices as linear perspective,…

Research on the emergence of sex differences in spatial ability during early adolescence prompted a meta-analysis of 172 spatial ability studies conducted since 1974. The meta-analysis confirmed that there are actually several spatial abilities, that some types of spatial ability show marked sex differences while others show none, and that spatial…

Goals and challenges pertaining to infant sensory and perceptual development are discussed. It is suggested that the inability of researchers to think and talk wisely about "partial accomplishments" in development creates a barrier in developmental research. Conceptual schemes are needed to accommodate these partial accomplishments. Three major…

Researchers disagree not only about the existence or magnitude of sex-related differences in spatial perception, but also about the determinants of such differences. Training in three distinct spatial tasks was provided in an attempt to destablize individual and sex-related differences, while exploring the relative contributions of biological and…

Six experiments involving 262 children (as young as 16 months and as old as fifth grade) indicate that the basic framework for coding location is present early in life and that later development consists of an increasing ability to impose organization on a broad range of bounded spaces. (SLD)

This research paper reports on testing the hypothesis that music and spatial task performance are causally related. Two complementary studies are presented that replicate and explore previous findings. One study of college students showed that listening to a Mozart sonata induces subsequent short-term spatial reasoning facilitation and tested the…

The main thrust of American education has been cognitively oriented. Recent research on the human brain suggests that such orientation is a general function of only one hemisphere of the brain, the left. Because of the close relationships among speech, language, thinking, reasoning, and the higher mental functions, the left brain hemisphere…

Efforts are underway to determine if there are any unique ways to Navajo thinking and thus to the way they might learn. Studies have shown a consistent lag in achievement levels for Native Americans, especially after seventh grade. At least three possible explanations for this phenomenon are viable: (1) They are deficient in the needed skills to…

Recognizing that photography in the classroom is highly motivating in that it offers a unique vehicle for communicating ideas visually, this study was designed to isolate variables which can be both observed and evaluated in photographs and for which instruction can be designed. Relationships among the technical and aesthetic qualities in…

Conclusions derived from drawing research indicate that young children can be trained to see and respond to the distinctions of their observation and that these distinctions can enrich their drawing experiences. These distinctions include spatial information obtained from observation. Three basic factors influence young children's spatial…

This study investigates children's spatial cognition in the microcomputer environment created by "HyperGami." Two categories of spatial cognition have been described: spatial visualization, which involves mentally rotating, manipulating and twisting two- and three-dimensional objects; and spatial orientation, which involves the ability…

This study was conducted to determine whether the filmic coding elements of split screen, slow motion, generated line cues, the zoom of a camera, and rotation could aid in the development of the Euclidean space concepts of horizontality and verticality, and to explore presence and development of spatial skills involving these two concepts in…

Sex differences in cerebral organization and functioning, and the apparent superiority of males in spatial ability are examined in this paper. Attention is given to several kinds of cognitive and perceptual tasks in which sex differences in spatial ability have been shown to exist; among these are tasks involving: (1) recall and detection of…