Using a touch screen paradigm to assess the development of mental rotation between 3½ and 5½ years of age

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 orientations, and children indicated in which of two holes the figure would fit by touching one of the holes on the screen. Task instructions were varied in three conditions, giving the children the opportunity to gather manual or observational experience with rotations of different stimuli, or giving no additional experience. Children’s error rates and response times increased linearly with increasing angular disparity between the figure and the hole by the age of 5 years, but 4-year-olds were found to respond at chance for all angular disparities, despite the use of a touch screen paradigm. Both manual and observational experience increased the response accuracy of 5-year-olds, especially for children already performing well. However, there was no effect on 4-year-olds. Results point to an emerging readiness to use mental rotation and profit from observational and manual experience at age 5.     

Children's performance in mental rotation tasks: orientation-free features flatten the slope

Studies of the development of mental rotation have yielded conflicting results, apparently because different mental rotation tasks draw on different cognitive abilities. Children may compare two stimuli at different orientations without mental rotation if the stimuli contain orientation-free features. Two groups of children (78 6-year-olds and 92 8-year-olds) participated in an experiment investigating development of the ability to mentally rotate and the ability to recognize and use orientation-free features. Children compared two stimuli, one upright and one rotated, and responded as quickly as possible indicating whether the stimuli were the same or different. The stimuli were either two panda bears or two ice-cream cones with three scoops of ice-cream of different colors. The panda bears were either identical or mirror images. The cones were either identical, mirror images, or non-mirror images. Response times increased linearly as a function of the angle of orientation when stimuli were the same and when the stimuli were mirror images. But response times were much less dependent on angle of orientation for non-mirror image stimuli. Children as young as 6 years recognized orientation-free stimulus features and responded without mentally rotating when the task permitted this strategy.     

Motor Processes in Children's Mental Rotation

Previous studies with adult human participants revealed that motor activities can influence mental rotation of body parts and abstract shapes. In this study, we investigated the influence of a rotational hand movement on mental rotation performance from a developmental perspective. Children at the age of 5, 8, and 11 years and adults performed a mental rotation task while simultaneously rotating their hand (guided by a handle). The direction of the manual rotation was either compatible or incompatible with the direction of the mental rotation. Response times increased with increasing stimulus orientation angles, indicating that participants of all age groups used mental rotation to perform the task. A differential effect of the compatibility of manual rotation and mental rotation was found for 5-year-olds and 8-year-olds, but not for 11-year-olds and adults. The results of this study suggest that the ability to dissociate motor from visual cognitive processes increases with age.     

Early development of scaling ability

The map is a small-scaled version of the space it represents. It has been argued that children have difficulty interpreting maps because they do not understand scale relations. Recent research has shown that even preschoolers can solve problems that involve scaling in one dimension. This study examined whether early scaling ability extends to tasks involving two-dimensional maps and referent spaces of different sizes. Results showed that about 60% of the 4-year-olds and 90% of the 5-year-olds tested used distance information presented on a map to locate an object in a two-dimensional spatial layout. Children had more difficulties in solving mapping tasks with a larger referent space. This decrease in accuracy as a function of space size on the mapping task was greater than would have been expected on the basis of performance on a parallel nonmapping task. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the mechanisms underlying early scaling ability.     

The format of children’s mental images: Penetrability of spatial images

To investigate the format of mental images and the penetrability of mental imagery performance to top-down influences in the form of gravity information, children (4-, 6-, 8- and 10-year-olds) and adults (N = 112) performed mental rotation tasks. A linear increase in response time with rotation angle emerged at 6-years, suggesting that spatial properties are represented in children’s mental images. Moreover, 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds, but not 4-year-olds or adults, took longer to respond to rotated stimuli pairs when gravity information was incongruent with the direction of rotation rather than congruent. Overall, findings suggest that in contrast to adults’, 6- to 10-year-olds’ mental rotation performance was penetrated by top-down information. This research (a) provides insight into the format of young children’s mental images and (b) shows that children’s mental rotation performance is penetrable by top-down influences.     

Effects of action on children’s and adults’ mental imagery

The aim of this study was to investigate whether and which aspects of a concurrent motor activity can facilitate children’s and adults’ performance in a dynamic imagery task. Children (5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds) and adults were asked to tilt empty glasses, filled with varied amounts of imaginary water, so that the imagined water would reach the rim. Results showed that in a manual tilting task where glasses could be tilted actively with visual feedback, even 5-year-olds performed well. However, in a blind tilting task and in a static judgment task, all age groups showed markedly lower performance. This implies that visual movement information facilitates imagery. In a task where the tilting movement was visible but regulated by means of an on-and-off remote control, a clear age trend was found, indicating that active motor control and motor feedback are particularly important in imagery performance of younger children.     

Exploring mental-state reasoning as a social-cognitive mechanism for social loafing in children

The authors explored mental-state reasoning ability among 72 preschoolers (ages 3-5 years) as a possible developmental mechanism for the well-known social loafing effect: diminished individual effort in a collaborative task. The authors expected that older children would outperform young children on standard mental-state reasoning tests and that they would display greater social loafing than younger children. In addition, we hypothesized that the ability to infer the mental states of others would be predictive of social loafing, but that the ability to reason about one's own knowledge would not. The authors gave children three standard false-belief tasks and participated in a within-subjects balloon inflation task that they performed both individually and as part of a group. Results indicated that 3-year-olds performed significantly below older preschoolers on mental-state reasoning tasks. Only 4- and 5-year-olds displayed diminished individual effort. Multiple regression analysis indicated that only the ability to reason about others' false beliefs accounted for a significant amount of variance in social loafing; age (in months) and own false-belief reasoning did not. The authors discussed theoretical and pedagogical implications.     

幼儿对心理状态的认识

本研究探讨３—５岁儿童对自身和他人心理状态认识的发展过程．借助图片和玩具结合四种作业任务,对１９１名儿童进行了实验和短期追踪实验。结果表明：３岁儿童尚不能对心理状态作出认识,４岁半左右是儿童认识心理状态的转折期,到５岁末能完全把握自身和他人的心理状态．在四项作业任务中,儿童通过的先后次序为他人误念判断和他人未知判断、现象一实在区分、表征变换．这一方面与儿童的认知发展趋势有关,另一方面也与实验的情景和材料有关．     

4-6岁儿童在小模型旋转任务中的线索学习与位置学习*

以90名4-6岁儿童为被试,探讨了儿童在小模型旋转任务中利用线索学习和位置学习表征空间位置的年龄特点。研究结果表明:(1)儿童对线索学习的利用要优于对位置学习的利用;(2)4岁儿童已经可以使用线索学习的方式表征空间位置,但到6岁左右才开始能够使用基于方向的位置学习;(3)线索特征对于儿童的线索学习有显著影响,明显、突出的线索有利于儿童的线索学习。     

The effects of ongoing task absorption on event-based prospective memory in preschoolers

The current study applied a 2 × 2 experimental design to investigate the effects of ongoing task absorption on event-based prospective memory performance of children aged 3 and 5 years. Children were required to label pictures as ongoing task but to remember to refrain from picture naming and to respond to the target cues in a different way as the prospective memory task. Two differently absorbing ongoing tasks (high absorbing scenario game task vs. low absorbing computer-based task) were administered. Results indicated that prospective memory performance of 5-year-old children was significantly better than that of 3-year-old children. Ongoing task absorption affected the ongoing task performance of preschoolers, but not overall prospective memory performance. Only the 3-year-olds were negatively affected by high ongoing task absorption, which was not the case for the 5-year-olds. The findings are discussed within the light of the multiprocess theory.     

The influence of juggling on mental rotation performance in children with spina bifida

This study examined the influence of juggling training on mental rotation ability in children with spina bifida. Children between the ages of 8 and 12 solved a chronometric mental rotation test. Half of the children received juggling training (EG) over an 8week time period; the other half did not receive training (CG). Afterwards, all participants completed the mental rotation test again. Children of the EG showed a significant decrease in reaction time and an increase in mental rotation speed compared to the control group. This indicates that juggling improves the rotation in the mental rotation process in children with spina bifida.     

Preschoolers Use Questions as a Tool to Acquire Knowledge From Different Sources

How do children use questions as tools to acquire new knowledge? The current experiment examined preschool children's ability to direct questions to appropriate sources to acquire knowledge. Fifty preschoolers engaged in a task that entailed asking questions to discover which special key would open a box that contained a prize. Children solved simple and complex problems by questioning two puppet experts who knew about separate features of each key. Results indicate dramatic developmental differences in the efficiency and efficacy of children's questions. Although even 3-year-olds asked questions, their questions were largely ineffective and directed toward inappropriate sources. Four-year-olds directed questions toward the appropriate sources but asked approximately equal numbers of effective and ineffective questions. Only 5-year-olds both asked the appropriate sources and formulated effective questions. Implications for the development of problem-solving abilities are discussed.     

Mental models and other misconceptions in children’s understanding of the earth

This study investigated the claim (e.g., Vosniadou & Brewer’s, 1992) that children have naive “mental models” of the earth and believe, for example, that the earth is flat or hollow. It tested the proposal that children appear to have these misconceptions because they find the researchers’ tasks and questions to be confusing and ambiguous. Participants were 6- and 7-year-olds (N = 127) who were given either the mental model theorists’ original drawing task or a new version in which the same instructions and questions were rephrased to minimize ambiguity and, thus, possible misinterpretation. In response to the new version, children gave substantially more indication of having scientific understanding and less of having naive mental models, suggesting that the misconceptions reported by the mental model theorists are largely methodological artifacts. There were also differences between the responses to the original version and those reported by Vosniadou and Brewer, indicating that other factors, such as cohort and cultural effects, are also likely to help explain the discrepant findings of previous research.     

Does mental rotation ability depend on sensory-specific experience?

No study has investigated the link between vision and touch with respect to spatial abilities using a within-subjects design. With this design, we compared participants’ tactile and visual mental rotation abilities, as measured by the Mental Rotations Test (Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978). Participants in four groups completed two consecutive sessions under no-switch (visual-visual or tactile-tactile) or switch conditions (visual-tactile or tactile-visual) to determine whether mental rotation abilities assessed in Session 2 depend on previous sensory-specific experiences (Session 1). Analysis of response accuracy revealed that all groups improved their performance in Session 2. Analysis of response time showed an improvement in visual and tactile performance during Session 2 for participants who first performed the task with the same modality. No effect of task repetition appeared for participants who performed in two different sensory conditions. These results reveal that mental rotation ability partly depends on sensory-specific conditions and that ability developed in a sensory-specific condition does not necessarily transfer to another sensory condition.     

The development of visual working memory capacity during early childhood

The change detection task has been used in dozens of studies with adults to measure visual working memory capacity. Two studies have recently tested children in this task, suggesting a gradual increase in capacity from 5 years to adulthood. These results contrast with findings from an infant looking paradigm suggesting that capacity reaches adult-like levels within the first year. The current study adapted the change detection task for use with children younger than 5 years to test whether the standard version of the task was too difficult and may have underestimated children's capacity. Results showed that 3- and 4-year-olds could successfully complete this modified task and that capacity increased roughly linearly, from 2 or 3 items during this period to 3 or 4 items between 5 and 7 years. Furthermore, performance did not differ significantly between the modified version and a replication of the standard version with 5- and 7-year-olds. Thus, there is no evidence that previous research with the change detection task underestimated children's capacity. Further research is needed to understand how performance relates across the infant looking task and change detection to provide a more complete picture of visual working memory capacity over development.     

Controlled and automatic processing during mental rotation

In two experiments, 9- and 10-year-olds and adults were tested on a mental rotation task in which they judged whether stimuli presented in different orientations were letters or mirror-images of letters. The mental rotation task was performed alone on 48 trials and concurrently with a memory task on 48 additional trials. The concurrent memory task in Experiment 1 was recalling digits; in Experiment 2, recalling positions in a matrix. The key result was that the slope of the function relating response time to stimulus orientation was the same when the mental rotation task was performed alone and when performed concurrently with the memory task. This result is interpreted as showing that mental rotation is an automatic process for both children and adults.     

Mental imagery in a visuospatial working memory task and modulation of activation

Ability to process information during a mental imagery task relying on visuospatial working memory and the advantages offered by the possibility of focusing the activation on specific items were examined in younger and older adults. The mental imagery task used for the study required participants to mentally move on a two-dimensional (5×5) or three-dimensional (3×3×3) matrix, while having to hold in memory either the whole pathway (WP condition) or just the final position reached (FP condition). The results revealed age-related differences in ability to modulate activation of visuospatial information. In particular, older adults, unlike the younger counterparts, did not benefit when the task allowed just part of the presented material to be considered. In particular, they drew less advantage from the three-dimensional matrix than the younger group. The findings are discussed in terms of the importance of processes reducing visuospatial working memory activation of irrelevant information and of the difficulties encountered by older adults in the modulation of activation.     

Validating the Electric Maze Task as a Measure of Planning

The Electric Maze Task (EMT) is a novel planning task designed to allow flexible testing of planning abilities across a broad age range and to incorporate manipulations to test underlying planning abilities, such as working-memory and inhibitory control skills. The EMT was tested in a group of 63 typically developing 7- to 12-year-olds. Participants completed 4 mazes designed to alter working-memory demands (by increasing the number of steps required from 6 to 8) and inhibitory control demands (by using a modified Dimensional Change Card Sort task) and 3 standardized measures using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery. The EMT was found to correlate with measures of visual memory, working memory, and planning. The 6-step mazes were simpler for participants to solve and mapped on to performance on the visual memory task. The 8-step mazes were more difficult and mapped on to performance on the spatial working-memory and planning tasks. Children who were 10 to 12 years old were also better than 7- to 9-year-olds at solving all mazes, as evidenced by fewer errors and fewer errors later in solving the mazes. Younger children also struggled more than older children after a rule switch. Performance on the maze task differentiated 7- to 12-year-old children with better planning skills, and manipulations of the maze task were successful in altering the working-memory and inhibitory control demands.     

The roles of imagery,language, and metamemory in cross-modal transfer in children

Summary The relative strengths of association of imagery, language, and metamemory to cross-modal transfer were evaluated in 5-year-olds and 7-year-olds. Children were administered either tactual-visual or visual-tactual cross-modal transfer tasks, as well as two visual imagery tasks (spatial recall and mental rotation), two language competence tasks (vocabulary and word usage), metamemory questions, and a general intelligence task. With intelligence and handedness controlled, only visual imagery related significantly to cross-modal transfer. These findings suggest that mental imagery, as opposed to language competence or metamemory, is a principal component of cross-modal transfer, and they are consistent with the observation that preverbal human infants and infrahuman primates exhibit cross-modal transfer.     

The effects of age and cue-action reminders on event-based prospective memory performance in preschoolers

The present study investigated event-based prospective memory in five age groups of preschoolers (i.e., 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds). Applying a laboratory-controlled prospective memory procedure, the data showed that event-based prospective memory performance improves across the preschool years, at least between 3 and 6 years of age. However, our findings do not confirm early speculations that 2-year-olds may have attained reliable skills to carry out future intentions on their own. By contrast, there were first signs of prospective memory abilities among the 3-year-olds. The present study also revealed that children as young as 3 years can use external memory aids in the form of cue-action reminders to improve their event-based prospective remembering. Finally, the findings suggest that parents or caregivers can adequately estimate their preschool children's prospective memory abilities, as revealed by applying a modified version of the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ).