Using Piagetian spatial conceptual development theory and Bruner's theory of concept formation, discusses major issues underlying children's inability to perform well on map skill tasks. Mapping problems covered include teachers' inability to use maps, curricular issues, poor instructional practices, and the use of commercial maps. (DST)

This study compared subjects from right-handed families and nonright-handed families in their ability to solve a mental-rotation task when instructed to use one of two different spatial strategies. Results suggested familial nonright-handers may be stronger in transformation of mental images, but weaker in reorientation in relation to left-right…

Examines the ability of six- and eight-year-old children to hide and recover 20 marbles in a large room containing 100 possible sites. Shows that children tend to concentrate activities in sections of the room and are sensitive to clusters of proximal sites. (HOD)

Investigates the ability of Malawians ranging from 7 through 23 years of age to make judgements of the relative sizes and spatial locations of objects in photographic scenes with restricted cues to depth. All age groups responded with an accuracy significantly above chance. Exhibiting maximum scores, adults were significantly more accurate than…

Investigates effects of perceptual salience and specific orientation values on 16 kindergarten and fourth-grade children executing a speeded sorting task. Kindergarten results supported the cognitive processing prediction that orientation sorting times would vary as a function of condition, but no differences were obtained for the fourth-grade…

Analyzes sex-related differences between mental rotation rate and spatial ability among adults, 14-year-olds, and 9.5-year-olds to determine the extent to which rotation rate is a correlate of various abilities. (HOD)

Tests the hypothesis that habituation of attention to irrelevant information can account for within-task improvement in selective attention--that children who are preexposed to stimuli that will later be irrelevant in a speeded classification task will experience less interference than children not given the opportunity to habituate. (HOD)

Eleven activities with a puzzle consisting of 12 five-square shapes are presented, with some solutions illustrated. (MNS)

Administered eight spatial tests including tests of rule inference and of rule application to 420 individuals aged 20-75 years. As expected, performance on all eight tests was better in subjects with higher education. Decline in performance with increasing age was not universal. (JAC)

Demonstrates how young children's learning of a completely novel route across a city district is enhanced by an accompanying adult making the child aware of potential landmarks. The importance of permanent and ephemeral landmarks in the child's verbal and modelled-map accounts of the route are discussed. (BC)

In this developmental study of sustained cognitive monitoring, second graders, sixth graders, and college students followed a two-part sequence of spatial directions and then made judgments about reaching the destination intended by direction giver. Cognitive monitoring skills of the type examined appear to be useful in many real-world cognitive…

Examines reasons for sex-related differences among adults on horizontality and verticality concepts. Studies the effects on task performance of inadequate knowlege of relevant physical phenomena and pictorial examples. (Author/AS)

Sex differences in speed of solving mental rotation problems were replicated but college men and women were alike in frequency of use of algorithms to solve problems. The most frequent algorithm involved encoding stimuli in working memory, mental rotation of one to orientation of the other, comparison, and response. (Author/RD)

Discusses (1) the process of early language development, giving specific attention to problematic aspects of a vocabulary for audition; (2) elicitation and instruction tasks used in the study of language acquisition; and (3) an investigation designed to compare language acquisition for dimensions of visual, spatial, and tactual perception with…

Four worksheets are presented, each using cubes to develop students' spatial visualization abilities. Directions and answer keys are both included. (MNS)