Two experiments were conducted concerning the development of spatial orientation during the second year of life. Both experiments were focused on oriented search for a hidden target object in the absence of landmarks, which can be accomplished by relating one's movements to knowledge of a target's location. (Author/RH)

Forty-eight young (mean age 28.9 years) and 44 older (mean age 67.2 years) males learned building layout and processed narratives about a character moving through the building. Both groups answered location room probes more quickly than other probes. Age differences in response time were greater for true probes about distant objects than for…

In two experiments, six-year olds and adults retrieved hidden objects or directed others to retrieve objects. Found that six-year olds' searches were more organized than their directions and that children and adults communicated spatial information in directions in an order of decreasing size of spatial unit. (BC)

Four experiments examined reference systems in spatial memories acquired from language. Participants read narratives that located 4 objects in canonical (front, back, left, right) or noncanonical (left front, right front, left back, right back) positions around them. Participants' focus of attention was first set on each of the 4 objects, and then…

Perception of objects in ordinary scenes requires interpolation processes connecting visible areas across spatial gaps. Most research has focused on 2-D displays, and models have been based on 2-D, orientation-sensitive units. The authors present a view of interpolation processes as intrinsically 3-D and producing representations of contours and…

Controlled Drawing Observation (CDO) was developed by Tove Krogh and it has been used in Denmark, Finland and Estonia for assessing a child's readiness for school. CDO is a group test, it gives information about a child's functioning in an educational setting and it serves as a starting point for later individual assessment. The goal of the study…

Spatial visualization skills are vital to many careers and in particular to STEM fields. Materials have been developed at Michigan Technological University and Penn State Erie, The Behrend College to assess and develop spatial skills. The EnViSIONS (Enhancing Visualization Skills-Improving Options aNd Success) project is combining these materials…

Embodied approaches to cognition propose that our own actions influence our understanding of the world. Do other people's actions also have this influence? The present studies show that perceiving another person's actions changes the way people think about objects in a scene. In Study 1, participants viewed a photograph and answered a question…

In this article, the author responds to a teacher's request for an advice on how to help a 5-year-old child in her class who has difficulty moving from place to place. The author states that the child has a problem on processing information and sensations that have to do with what he sees. This is called "visual-spatial processing" or…

Previous studies have reported working memory deficits in autism, but this finding has been inconsistent. One possibility is that deficits in this domain may be present only when working memory load exceeds some limited capacity. High-functioning individuals with autism performed the CANTAB computerized test of spatial working memory. Individuals…

The spatial frequency hypothesis contends that performance differences between the hemispheres on various visuospatial tasks are attributable to lateralized processing of the spatial frequency content of visual stimuli. Hellige has proposed that such lateralization could arise during infant development from the earlier maturation of the right…

Three computer-based experiments which tested human participants in a non-immersive virtual watermaze task sought to determine factors which dictate whether the presence of a visual platform disrupts locale learning and taxon learning. In Experiment 1, the visible platform disrupted locale but not taxon learning based on viewpoint-independent and…

Imaging is a component of fundamental cognitive processes employed in a variety of cognitive activities. In particular, imaging is of special relevance to artistic skills. As part of our research on the relationships between mental images and the plastic arts, the influence of the imaging capacity in the visual art skills was investigated.…

This contribution presents two major findings from a qualitative investigation into spatial ability. The elicited data suggested that one of the significant differences between individuals identified as high and low in spatial ability was their decomposition skill relative to spatial problems. Also revealing was the impact of frustration and…

We investigated infants' sensitivity to spatiotemporal structure. In Experiment 1, circles appeared in a statistically defined spatial pattern. At test 11-month-olds, but not 8-month-olds, looked longer at a novel spatial sequence. Experiment 2 presented different color/shape stimuli, but only the location sequence was violated during test;…