Presents the Picasso Masterpiece problem to develop spatial reasoning in students. Addresses the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Geometry Content Standards. (Author/NB)

Developed a standardized self-report scale of environmental spatial ability, the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction Scale and evaluated it in six studies with 544 college students. Results supported the reliability of the scale and suggested that the scale is related to tasks that require one to update location in space as a result of self-motion.…

The study with 250 undergraduates taking a biology course found that when students low in spatial cognition were given remedial exercises to enhance spatial understanding their grades in biology improved though students initially high in spatial ability continued to have a higher level of proficiency. (Author/DB)

Relates the development of theories concerning gender differences in mental ability and reexamines them using meta-analysis. Finds that the greatest difference is in one type of spatial ability, mental rotation. There is only a small difference in mathematical performance, and no difference in verbal ability. (DM)

Scores on the Cognitive Laterality Battery for 57 boys, aged 9-11, indicated that both urban and rural-remote Alaska Native boys had significantly higher visuospatial abilities than verbal-sequential abilities, but the reverse was true for urban Alaskan White boys. Contains 34 references. (SV)

Reviews visualization research concerning the objects of visualization, the visualization process, and visualization in educational situations. Teaching procedures, the role of material and the social environment, and how the individual interacts with that environment are described. (YP)

A form perception theory is proposed in an attempt to understand problems in mental rotation and in perception of forms rotated in the frontal-parallel plane. The theory, along with distinctions among four types of information, was supported by two mental and three visual experiments with 74 undergraduate students. (TJH)

The article describes a project in which blind and partially sighted children used a computer-guided floor turtle to develop spatial concepts such as right and left and accurate facing movements. (Author/DB)

Explored relationships among three measures of spatial ability--Embedded Figures Test, Mental Rotations Test, and Differential Aptitude Spatial Relations subtest--an environmental cognition task, American College Testing mathematics and English achievement in undergraduates (N=282). Interpreted results as substantiating sex role socialization…

Reports two experiments evaluating the effect of map feature content on text recall by subjects of varying reading skill levels. Finds that both experiments support the conjoint retention hypothesis, in which dual-coding of spatial and verbal information and their interaction in memory enhance recall. (MM)

This article addresses issues of orientation and mobility for students with visual impairments, including the perception of motion, visual mechanisms of binocular coordination, perception of impending collision, and body movement to avoid collision. Emphasis is on the role of binocular coordination ability and acuity. These concepts were evaluated…

Spatial language in English and American Sign Language (ASL) was compared by asking 10 native signers and 10 English speakers to solve a set of spatial puzzles. The study highlights the ramifications of a linguistic system in which space itself is used to convey spatial information compared to one that conveys the same information via an auditory…

Examined how children's and adults' initial conceptions of objects and space influence predictions about the physical world, but lead the naive person to misconstrue a dynamic event. Found that participants proficiently anticipated where an oscillating screen would contact a hidden object, but underestimated the distance until contact.…

Ninety-three children (ages 10-12) were compared on phonological and visuospatial abilities. Children with a reading disability performed worse than nondisabled children on many visual and eye movement tasks. Sixty-eight percent of the variance in reading ability could be predicted by combining visual and phonological scores in a multiple…

Six experiments assessed young children's spatial orientation relative to their imagined surroundings. The experiments found that children as young as 3.5 years were able, like adults, to accurately walk along a path that replicated the route between their seat and the teacher's desk in their preschool classroom. (MDM)