How learning styles (massed versus distributed practice) influence the relationship between abilities and task performance was studied with 209 undergraduates. Analysis reveals that perceptual speed contributes to performance for subjects who massed practice, whereas spatial visualization contributed for those who distributed practice.…

Past research indicates that specific shape recognition and spatial-relations encoding rely on subsystems that exhibit right-hemisphere advantages, whereas abstract shape recognition and spatial-relations encoding rely on subsystems that exhibit left-hemisphere advantages. Given these apparent regularities, we tested whether asymmetries in shape…

We asked 22 right brain-damaged (RBD) patients and 11 elderly healthy controls to perform hand-pointing movements to free-field unseen sounds, while modulating two non-auditory variables: the initial position of the responding hand (left, centre or right) and the presence or absence of task-irrelevant ambient vision. RBD patients suffering from…

Past research (e.g., J. M. Loomis, Y. Lippa, R. L. Klatzky, & R. G. Golledge, 2002) has indicated that spatial representations derived from spatial language can function equivalently to those derived from perception. The authors tested functional equivalence for reporting spatial relations that were not explicitly stated during learning.…

Contextual cuing refers to the facilitation of performance in visual search due to the repetition of the same displays. Whereas previous studies have focused on contextual cuing within single-search trials, this study tested whether 1 trial facilitates visual search of the next trial. Participants searched for a T among Ls. In the training phase,…

The enumeration of small numbers of objects (approximately 4) proceeds rapidly, accurately, and with little effort via a process termed subitization. Four experiments examined whether it was possible to subitize the number of features rather than objects present in a display. Overall, the findings showed that when features are presented randomly…

Five experiments involving a total of 44 college students addressed the effects of intercomponent consistency on skill acquisition in a class of cognitively demanding tasks requiring rapid integration of information and rapid application of rules. The role of consistency of external stimulus-to-rule linkage in facilitating learning and performing…

This study examined the effects and interaction of multiple and linear visual presentation modes and cognitive style on performance in a visual location task. Subjects were 132 undergraduate college students (40 males, 92 females) in professional education courses. The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT, Wilkin et al., 1971) was used to identify…

Two experiments involving 42 students from the Model Secondary School for the Deaf investigated both the visual and tactile components in the processing of spatial information. Test measures used were the Figures Rotations Test, Group Embedded Figures Test, and Tactile Rotations Test. The study suggested that spatial reasoning is a determining…

Explores (1) problems of the validity of tests of spatial ability, and (2) problems of the recessive gene influence theory of the origin of sex differences in spatial ability. Studies of cognitive strategies in spatial problem solving are suggested as a way to further investigate recessive gene influence. (Author/RH)

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…

These studies confirm the view that the "air gap" phenomenon, which refers to the area that remains when ground and sky lines are constructed at the bottom and top of a drawing, is commonly found in the free drawings of middle and later childhood, but that it is readily abandoned when task demands are modified accordingly. (Author/DB)

The construct validity of the Hooper Visual Organization Test (VOT) (H. Hooper, 1983) was studied by comparing it to conceptually similar and dissimilar cognitive abilities in a principal components analysis of results from 240 participants with cognitive impairment. Results suggest that the VOT is best considered a measure of visual-spatial…

Two studies of development of spatial representation with two dimensions found that children as young as five years use the same two independent dimensions in fine-grained spatial coding of location in a circle as adults use--radius and angle. The adult pattern, where angle as well as radius is coded hierarchically, emerges by nine years. (HTH)

In tennis as well as in other racket/paddle sports, simply watching the ball does not guarantee success in hitting the ball to the desired location. Teachers and coaches should teach players to integrate available visual, spatial, and kinesthetic information. Several drills for good ball contact are outlined. (IAH)