Understanding science and technology issues requires a number of spatial abilities in order to comprehend the three-dimensional structure of systems. Adequate spatial abilities have long been identified as a necessary mental tool for understanding science and technology phenomena. Multimedia technology has opened the door for a large variety of…

It has been hypothesized that differences in mathematical word problems are the result of differences in spatial skill. Why complex spatial abilities are needed for an individual to represent the relatively simple spatial relations in word problems is not clear. It is possible that a third variable, cognitive strategy preferences, may partially…

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…

This study examined whether and to what extent the characteristics of mental models derived from the identical text, which is known to produce a certain type of mental model, are influenced if the subjects are given different task expectations before the reading session. Seventy-one undergraduates read one of the two text genres, descriptive or…

This paper explores the preliminary results of an ongoing 3-year study of cognitive function and cognitive education among hearing-impaired persons (n=200) and considers these results in the context of previous studies. Cognitive task performance among the deaf was below average for the verbal and sequential skills associated with the left…

As part of an experimental research program on lifespan naturalistic and laboratory memory for spatial representation, investigators examined interactions between the effects of visual and kinesthetic encoding and age on memory for space using a modification of the Sinnott (1987) human maze paradigm. It was hypothesized that an age effect favoring…

The author reviews her work in attempting to prevent learning failure and resulting emotional problems in young children. She considers the difficulties involved in prevention of a multiply determined and multiply defined condition such as learning failure. The benefits of prevention (including lower cost than later treatment) are pointed out as…

The literature on the measurement of working memory is discussed, with emphasis on the validity of such measurement with elementary school students. Approaches by J. Pascual-Leone, R. Case, A. D. Baddeley, and C. Hulme are considered. An experimental study is presented, in which 100 boys and 91 girls (aged from 6 years to 10 years 11 months) were…

A series of experiments were conducted in Calgary to determine performance of attention deficit disordered (ADD) and learning disabled (LD) children without ADD on a selective attention task (The Matching Familiar Figures Test) and a sustained attention task (paired associate learning). Results of experiment 1 indicated deficits in sustained…

The influence of two sources of individual differences in acquiring knowledge from maps was studied: abilities and learning procedures. Twenty-five undergraduate students provided verbal protocols while attempting to learn two maps, and six effective learning procedures were identified: partitioning, imagery, memory-directed sampling, pattern…

The paper discusses creative dance experiences with visually and mentally handicapped persons. A brief introduction is followed by comments on sensory stimulation during infancy, mobility and orientation, physical education and recreation techniques, and approaches (such as biofeedback and progressive relaxation) to deal with stereotyped movement…

An experimental test battery designed to measure several perceptual abilities was administered to 1,368 (51.8% male) paying clients of the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation (JOCRF) in an effort to identify and measure three perceptual abilities: (1) flexibility of closure; (2) speed of closure; and (3) spatial scanning. Subjects, who ranged in…

Two experiments investigated preschoolers' acquisition of spatial words in Mandarin Chinese. In one experiment, 5 groups of 10 children at 34, 39, 46, 52, and 57 months were tested for comprehension and production of 14 pairs of Chinese spatial words. In the comprehension test the children were asked to point to pictures corresponding to the words…

Individual differences in verbal/analytic and nonverbal/holistic cognitive strategies were studied in relationship to performance levels in spatial tasks, sex and handedness. Analytic processes are described as sequential, resulting in decomposition of stimulus information, and holistic processes, as parallel, involving information synthesis.…

One of the important cognitive strategies individuals use when learning is to organize many bits of information into integrated patterns called chunks. To investigate the process of chunking spatial information, 32 college students integrated two cognitive maps either before or after an interfering task. The combined spatial layout formed either a…