This study, involving 20 children (ages 6-12) with legal blindness or partial sight, explored the relationships between ability to read and performance on tasks which require the manipulation of figure/ground relations. Significant differences were found between fluent readers and poor readers/nonreaders on four of the six tasks. No age…

Field dependence and spatial ability are examined as different labels for a common underlying dimension. Sixty college students completed two tests of field dependence and two tests of spatial ability. Results of an analysis of covariance found no evidence to view the two traits as distinct from each other. (Author/LMO)

Four groups of children (N=80; C.A. 6.6. to 12.5; M.A. 7.9 to 14.7) were tested for ability to reproduce five-element two- and three-dimensional patterns. Significant interaction and main effects were found. Three-dimensional pattern performance increased with age; all ages performed well on two-dimensional patterns. (Author/DB)

This exploratory study investigated whether there are differences between males and females in the strategies used to construct mental representations from three-dimensional objects in a dimensional travel display. A Silicon Graphics IRIS computer was used to create the travel displays and mathematical models were created for each of the objects…

Performance of congenitally blind children and blindfolded children was compared on tasks requiring spatial reasoning and shape recognition. Blind subjects performed at least as well as blindfolded subjects on simple two-dimensional tactual processing tasks, but less well on more complex tasks requiring them to store, compare, and label objects.…

This report presents the results of a study designed to evaluate the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation's (JOCRF's) measurement of structural visualization. Three experimental tests--the Incomplete Open Cubes Test, the Guilford-Zimmerman Spatial Visualization Test, and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices--were added to the JOCRF's test battery…

Four factors have been reported in the literature as being related to spatial test performance. This study investigated the main and interaction effects of sex, handedness, birth order, and experience on three different types of spatial performance; surface development, object rotation, and coordination of viewpoints. A total of 217 undergraduate…

The relationship between students' relative ability in visual-spatial tasks as well as their verbal and numerical skills to their performance in an introductory college chemistry course was investigated. For 700 subjects, verbal and mathematics Scholastic Aptitude Test scores (SAT-V) and (SAT-M) and the following four perceptual tests were…

A program of research was conducted to study transitions from preoperational to concrete operational forms of spatial imagery (area 1), to compare results from spatial imagery studies based on open-ended measures (such as drawings) with results based on reaction time measures (area 2), and to study anticipatory imagery in the contexts of memory…

Thirty language-impaired, reading-impaired, and normal children, aged 6:8-8:10, were administered eight tasks in word repetition, rapid naming, syllable segmentation, paper folding, and form completion. Controls performed better than the subjects on all but two tasks, and the language-impaired and reading-impaired children performed comparably on…

Using 146 high school students, this research assessed the effects of aptitude, strategy training, and item characteristics on the strategic processes employed in the performance of spatial visualization tasks. Treatment effects were shown to depend on the subject's aptitude profile and on the characteristics of items. (BS)

Engineering students were given a mental rotation test at the beginning and end of their first-year engineering course and again several years later to assess the relationship between spatial visualization skill and retention in engineering. No relationship was found between task scores and retention; however, a course in design and graphics…

Spatial abilities are fundamental to human functioning in the physical world. Spatial reasoning allows people to use concepts of shape, features, and relationships in both concrete and abstract ways, to make and use things in the world, to navigate, and to communicate. Surgeons, pilots, architects, engineers, mechanics, builders, farmers, trades…

Emerging areas and critical problems related to computer-based testing are identified. Topics covered include adaptive testing; calibration; item selection; multidimensional items; uses of information processing theory; relation to cognitive psychology; and tests of short-term and spatial memory, perceptual speed and accuracy, and movement…

Results from 4 cognitive tests administered to 84 public service librarians and 50 university students show that librarians outperformed students in logical reasoning and verbal ability but that students outperformed librarians in perceptual speed. Findings suggest students may find browsing, point of use instruction, and basic services more…