Explains spatial perception and how it is influential on a student's academic abilities. Discusses how spatial thinkers conduct experiments in science learning and how to teach using spatial thinkers' participation. (YDS)

Four-, 6-, and 8-year olds were shown a test picture of three related objects and two target pictures of three objects in the same or different relation. Older subjects, but not 4-year olds, identified the relationally similar target picture when the test and target also differed in dimensions of size or color saturation and in direction of size…

Investigated the pedagogical quality of physical space by adapting a classroom to create a material "educational field" and testing children's performance on a "go to the front and right of the tower" activity. Found that the educational field made it possible for children to put into relation two spatial reference systems and…

Three studies investigated how experiencing nearby locations together in time influenced memory for location in 7-, 9-, and 11- year-olds and adults. Findings suggested that experiencing nearby locations together in time increased the weight children assigned to categorical information in their later estimates of location. Results were similar…

Examined the ability of 144 children of 6 and 12 years to respond to instructions to use environmental landmarks when leading the way. Children who were told they would lead the way did not prepare more adequately than children who were not told. Children did benefit from instructions to attend to environmental features. (RJC)

Three experiments using the familiarization-novelty preference procedure confirmed the hypothesis that three-month-old infants could form categorical representations of spatial relations above and below. The infants, after being shown a familiarization diagram with a dot appearing in multiple locations below a line, showed a preference for a novel…

Found that faulty test procedures may explain why infants sometimes locate hidden objects more easily in multiple-well tests than in two-well trials. Also found that errors in seven-well tests were not evenly distributed but occurred disproportionately in the direction of the previously correct well, suggesting that memory and inhibition are both…

Performance by congenitally blind, adventitiously blind, and sighted persons on three types of tasks (manipulatory, simple locomotion, and complex locomotion) was assessed. The three groups tended to perform equivalently. Results offer little evidence of a set of spatial processes that rely on past visual experience and are applicable to a broad…

An experimental group of 20 gifted adolescents received 3 weeks of computer-assisted design (CAD) instruction. Comparison of their scores on Revised Minnesota Paper Form Board test with those of 20 gifted controls showed CAD did not improve spatial visualization ability. Possible causes were differential computer experience, lack of random…

A theory of voluntary, top-down spatial control of visual spatial attention is presented that explains how linguistic cues are used to direct attention from one object to another. A series of 11 experiments involving almost 200 college students supports the theory and the importance of spatial reference frames. (SLD)

This study evaluated the accuracy of 9 pointing methods used by 20 blind adults. Substantial differences were found, with the most accurate methods involving a body part or extension. The verbal "clockface" was the least accurate and most variable method. The long cane is recommended as a pointing method for adults in applied and…

Examined infants' ability to locate an invisible target after instrumental and association training. After instrumental training, localization was dependent on visual cues, whereas after association training, it occurred with or without visual cues. Concluded that an updating strategy based on proprioceptive information is operative from the…

Compared interstimulus interval (ISI) eye movements of 3-month-olds viewing an alternating picture sequence with those of infants viewing an irregular sequence. Found that all infants exhibited shifts during ISIs. Repetitive saccades declined while alternating and anticipatory saccades increased in alternating sequences. ISI shift frequency did…

Demonstrates how research-based knowledge of students' incompatible solutions to various representations of the same problem could be used to raise their awareness of inconsistencies in their reasoning. Reports that students' decisions as to whether two given infinite sets have the same number of elements depend on the specific representation of…

Describes three activities of imaging, including constructing an image, representation-presenting the image, and transforming the image. Discusses a link between imaging and number sense, teaching students to image, and assessing imaging. Contains 25 references. (ASK)