Browsing by Subject "spatial reasoning"
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Item Developing relations between spatial knowledge and spatial language in human children(2012-04-17) Scott, Nicole M.; Sera, Maria D.; Georgopoulos, Apostolos P.One of the hallmarks of human intelligence is the ability to quickly extract and encode spatial relations. Yet little is known about how this ability evolved, about its relation to human language, and about the neural mechanisms that support it. We have begun to examine the development of spatial cognition using a developmental approach to shed light on these issues. We have two alternative hypotheses: 1) the same underlying mechanisms operate in processing two sets of spatial relations – above/below (A/B) and left/right (L/R), or (2) different mechanisms are involved and are reflected by the order in which terms for these relations are learned by human children. We tested these hypotheses by examining the performance of children between 5 and 11 years old on a verbal and nonverbal task of spatial reasoning. We will follow up this study with an investigation of the neural processing of these relations in adults.Item A Game-Based Solution to the Lack of Training and Assessment Opportunities for Spatial Reasoning(2023-01) VanMeerten, NicolaasSpatial reasoning is an important skill that people use on a daily basis. There is also strong evidence that people with enhanced spatial reasoning skills are more likely to pursue successful careers related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Spatial reasoning skills are also malleable, which suggests that spatial reasoning training and assessment could be used to enhance academic outcomes in STEM. However, there are relatively few readily accessible training or assessment opportunities for spatial reasoning. Commercial video games should be adapted to create more spatial reasoning training environments. Video games provide unique affordances that support training and learning, including: (1) delivering the appropriate level of challenge and (2) the ease of assessment integration. I found evidence that there is a relationship between performance in Optica, a mobile-puzzle game, and spatial reasoning skills among middle-school students. Specifically, I discovered a relationship between the number of levels completed in Optica and score on the PSVT: R by comparing multiple linear regression models with Akaike Information Criteria. Thus, Optica has shown potential as a suitable virtual environment for training and assessing spatial reasoning skills. Although there were limitations to this study, they can be remedied by updates to the design of the game, telemetry collection, and enhanced experimental design. I believe that Optica should be iterated upon to develop it into a fully-fledged game environment for training and assessing spatial reasoning skills, which will benefit many areas of STEM simultaneously.