Latent growth models were applied to data on multitrial verbal and spatial learning tasks from two independent studies. Although significant individual differences in both initial level of performance and subsequent learning were found in both tasks, age differences were found only in mean initial level, and not in mean learning. In neither task…

Numerical fractions are commonly used to express ratios and proportions (i.e., real numbers), but little is known about how they are mentally represented and processed by skilled adults. Four experiments employed comparison tasks to investigate the distance effect and the effect of the spatial numerical association of response codes (SNARC) for…

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) plays an important role in visual cognition. Although objects are located on different 3-dimensional (3-D) surfaces in the real world, how VSTM capacity may be influenced by the presence of multiple 3-D surfaces has never been examined. By manipulating binocular disparities of visual displays, the authors found that…

Many memory models focus on encoding of sequences by excitatory recurrent synapses in region CA3 of the hippocampus. However, data and modeling suggest an alternate mechanism for encoding of sequences in which interference between theta frequency oscillations encodes the position within a sequence based on spatial arc length or time. Arc length…

A quantitative computational theory of the operation of the CA3 system as an attractor or autoassociation network is described. Based on the proposal that CA3-CA3 autoassociative networks are important for episodic or event memory in which space is a component (place in rodents and spatial view in primates), it has been shown behaviorally that the…

Three studies were conducted to examine the relation of spatial visualization to solving kinematics problems that involved either predicting the two-dimensional motion of an object, translating from one frame of reference to another, or interpreting kinematics graphs. In Study 1, 60 physics-naive students were administered kinematics problems and…

One hundred and six undergraduates searched a hypermedia environment under three navigational conditions, wrote an essay measuring their comprehension, and completed a test of metacognition. The map conditions were spatial/semantic, spatial only, and none. Analyses revealed that a navigational map capable of incurring an integrative cognitive…

Three- to six-year-old children (n=28) and adults (n=46) participated in a two-dimensional search task that included geometry and feature conditions. During each of 24 trials, participants watched as a cartoon character hid behind one of three landmarks arranged in a triangle on a computer screen. The landmarks and character then disappeared and…

Using animated computer-generated graphics to assist instruction has recently attracted the attention of educators and educational researchers. The specific focus of this study is to compare the influence of animated visuals with static visuals on college students' understanding of organic reaction mechanisms in chemistry. This study also focuses…

This article examines whether questions embedded in geography textbooks address three components of spatial thinking: concepts of space, tools of representation, and processes of reasoning. A three-dimensional taxonomy of spatial thinking was developed and used to evaluate questions in four high school level geography textbooks. The results…

Although research has focused primarily on the wide range of variability in the cognitive phenotype between individuals with velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS), we know relatively little about the extent to which within-individual expressions of the cognitive phenotype remain stable throughout development. General cognitive functioning in the low…

Two experiments examined whether text composition engages verbal, visual, and spatial working memory to different degrees. In Experiment 1, undergraduate students composed by longhand a persuasive text while performing a verbal, visual, or spatial concurrent task that was presented visually. In Experiment 2, participants performed a verbal or…

Many students perform extraction experiments without connecting relevant molecular features to corresponding macroscopic features. Two versions of an Organic Extraction Simulation, one with text "captions" and the other with "narration" accompanying the animation, were developed based on a cognitive view of multimedia learning.…

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder associated with severe visuocognitive impairment. Individuals with WS also report difficulties with everyday wayfinding. To study the development of body-, environment-, and object-based spatial frames of reference in WS, we tested 45 children and adults with WS on a search task in which the participant…

Earlier studies have found that students, including adults, have problems understanding the scientifically accepted model of the Sun-Earth-Moon system and explaining day-to-day astronomical phenomena based on it. We have been examining such problems in the context of recent research on visual-spatial reasoning. Working with middle school students…