In: Psychological Research, 2019, vol. 83, p. 855-893
The current study investigated whether children’s mental representations of numbers are organized spatially at the onset of formal schooling using a manual-pointing task. First- graders (N = 77) saw four numbers (1, 3, 7, 9) presented randomly in four spatial positions (extreme left, left, right, extreme right) on a touch screen. In a Go/No-Go task, children were asked to press the appearing...
|
In: Child Development, 2013, vol. 84, no. 5, p. 1554-1565
In this study, 6-month-olds’ ability to mentally rotate objects was investigated using the violation-of-expectation paradigm. Forty infants watched an asymmetric object being moved straight down behind an occluder. When the occluder was lowered, it revealed the original object (possible) or its mirror image (impossible) in one of five orientations. Whereas half of the infants were allowed...
|
In: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2013, vol. 115, no. 4, p. 708-720
Recent evidence indicates that 6-month-old infants’ mental rotation of objects profits from prior manual experience, whereas observational experience does not have the same beneficial effect (Möhring, W. & Frick, A., 2013, Child Development). The present study investigated whether older infants, at 8 and 10 months of age, succeed in this task after observational experience only, and...
|
In: Cognitive Processing, 2013, vol. 14, no. 2, p. 117-127
Mental rotation is an important spatial skill. However, there is controversy concerning its early development and susceptibility to intervention. In the present study, we assessed individual differences in the mental rotation abilities of children between 3½ and 5½ years of age, using a touch screen paradigm to simplify task demands. A figure or its mirror image was presented in 8 different...
|
In: Cognitive Development, 2013, vol. 28, no. 4, p. 386-399
We assessed 3- to 5-year-olds’ mental rotation abilities using a new puzzle paradigm. It allows for assessment of mental rotation abilities in children younger than 5 years, using a task comparable to ones used with older children and adults. Children saw pairs of asymmetrical ghost figures, either as three-dimensional cut-outs or two- dimensional paper versions, in seven orientations. One...
|
In: Developmental Psychology, 2014, vol. 50, no. 5, p. 1614-1619
Spatial scaling is an important prerequisite for many spatial tasks and involves an understanding of how distances in different-sized spaces correspond. Previous studies have found evidence for such an understanding in preschoolers; however, the mental processes involved remain unclear. The present study investigated whether children and adults use mental transformations to scale distances in...
|
In: Spatial Cognition & Computation, 2015, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 227-245
Diagrams and pictorial representations are common in children's lives and require abstraction away from visual perception. In three experiments, we investigated 4- to 8- year-olds’ comprehension of such representations. In Experiment 1 (N = 80), children were shown photographs of geometric objects and asked to choose the corresponding line drawing from among sets of four, or vice versa....
|
In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2016, vol. 42, no. 9, p. 1473-1479
Spatial scaling, or an understanding of how distances in different-sized spaces relate to each other, is fundamental for many spatial tasks and relevant for success in numerous professions. Previous research has suggested that adults use mental transformation strategies to mentally scale spatial input, as indicated by linear increases in response times and accuracies with larger scaling...
|
In: Psychological Research, 2017, vol. 81, no. 4, p. 730-739
Developmental research on spatial perspective taking has shown that young children are able to solve perspective-taking problems under favorable circumstances, but they have difficulties succeeding in classic tasks involving a conflict between one’s own perspective and that of another observer. To date, little is known about the reasons for young children’s difficulties in dealing with...
|
