Two experiments with second graders, sixth graders, college students, and mildly retarded persons showed that children and mildly retarded persons process spatial location information as well as do college students. Some, but not all, of the more severely retarded persons had deficits in processing memory for location. (Author/DB)

Studies the relationship between timing of puberty and spatial ability in 53 undergraduate women. Results do not show evidence for greater spatial ability on the part of those who have late maturation. (RJC)

Two studies with 28 Boston College undergraduates tested the hypothesis that people who report a poor sense of direction (SOD) have an impaired ability to use spatial information in an abstract or symbolic way. The hypothesis was not supported. Poor SOD correlates to a mental egocentrism in self-to-environmental-object relations. (TJH)

Assessed sex differences in performance on the subtests of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children using more than 2,500 children ages 2-1/2 to 12-1/2 years old. Results confirmed previous research with female superiority on short-term memory tasks and male superiority on spatial-visualization skills. (Author/ABL)

A modified Visual Expectation Paradigm assessed the role of picture content in the spatiotemporal expectations of 80 infants. Stable picture content information facilitated formation of expectations about when and where pictures would appear. Two month olds' reactions were consistently slower than those of three month olds.(LB)

Two experiments are presented that investigate the processing of pronominal reference in American Sign Language. Experiment one indicated that pronoun activation was not immediate, and there was no strong evidence for the inhibition of nonreferents. Experiment two was designed to investigate whether the pronoun also activated a representation of…

Three experiments involving 107 adults who performed mental rotation tasks explored how location information is incorporated into image representation. Results suggest that image is coded retinotopically in image representations and that there is no spatiotropic transform in the early stages of visual processing. (SLD)

Investigates whether background television produces structural interference with aspects of cognitive processing. Finds a significant deleterious effect on a geometric analogies and completion task involving visuo-spatial processing and marginal improvement on a parallel verbal analogy test. Shows that concurrent television exposure had no…

Reports four experiments that examined four-year olds' ability to coordinate orthogonal spatial dimensions. Found that performance was particularly good when two imagined lines of sight were the dimensions to be coordinated. Results support the notion that young children perform better when tasks are set in a meaningful context. (MM)

The generation and recall by students of personally relevant information with techniques that varied in the use of spatial and verbal aspects of node-link maps were studied with 108 college students. Students who used node-link maps became more proficient over time than those who used listing. (SLD)

Traces a student's use of different types of imagery over an extended period of time in order to determine why the student seldom used imagery to solve problems. Concludes that for most of her school life, the student had been able to rely on analytic processing to complete mathematical tasks and could do so quite successfully. (Contains 30…

Six experiments involving a total of 112 college students demonstrate that a robust memory for visual context exists to guide spatial attention. Results show how implicit learning and memory of visual context can guide spatial attention toward task-relevant aspects of a scene. (SLD)

Presents four activities in which students cut out and assemble pieces to create Celtic designs. (ASK)

Presents mathematics activities focusing on explorations in the environment that include visual or geometric components. (ASK)

Investigated whether environmental factors affected the magnitude of gender differences in spatial performance when tasks were susceptible to the influence of such factors. Evaluation of college students indicated that males outperformed females on two spatial tests. Activities preference in childhood affected the magnitude of gender differences…