Search results for "Spatial Ability"
showing 10 items of 24 documents
Adolescent and adult mice display differential sensitivity to the effects of bupropion on the acquisition of a water maze task.
2017
Abstract Background Adolescence is characterized by major neurobiological changes, and the effects of some psychoactive drugs seem to differ between adolescents and adults. Bupropion, an antidepressant that is also used to treat nicotine addiction, induces behavioral actions in both adolescent and adult rodents. However, the effects of this drug on spatial ability have not been compared in animals at different stages of their development. The present study was conducted to assess the effects of bupropion on spatial learning and memory in adolescent and adult mice. Methods Adolescent (post-natal day: PND35-36) and adult (PND >65) NMRI mice received bupropion (10, 20 and 40 mg/kg) or saline d…
A Comparative Study of General Intelligence in Spanish and Moroccan Samples
2012
The aim of this study is to fill a gap in intelligence research by presenting data for the average IQ in Morocco and for a comparable sample in Spain. Adult samples were administered theRaven Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM)(Raven, Court, & Raven, 2001) and scored for the total test and for the three sub-factors of gestalt continuation, verbal-analytical reasoning and visuospatial ability identified by Lynn, Allik, and Irwing (2004). The total test and the three factors have shown satisfactory reliability. Our results for the Moroccan sample show significant relationship between general intelligence factor, gestalt continuation and visuospatial ability with education level and income…
The development of facial emotion recognition: The role of configural information
2007
International audience; The development of children's ability to recognize facial emotions and the role of configural information in this development were investigated. In the study, 100 5-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds and 26 adults needed to recognize the emotion displayed by upright and upside-down faces. The same participants needed to recognize the emotion displayed by the top half of an upright or upside-down face that was or was not aligned with a bottom half that displayed another emotion. The results showed that the ability to recognize facial emotion develops with age, with a developmental course that depends on the emotion to be recognized. Moreover, children at all ages and adults e…
Working Memory in Children: A Time-Constrained Functioning Similar to Adults
2009
International audience; Within the Time-Based Resource-Sharing (TBRS) model, we tested a new conception of the relationships between processing and storage in which the core mechanisms of WM are time constrained. However, our previous studies were restricted to adults. The present study aimed at demonstrating that these mechanisms are present and functional before adulthood. For this purpose, we investigated the effect on maintenance of the duration of the attentional capture induced by processing. In two experiments using computer-paced WM span tasks, 10- year-old children were asked to maintain letters while performing spatial location judgments. The duration of this processing was manipu…
Effect of musical expertise on visuospatial abilities: evidence from reaction times and mental imagery.
2003
Abstract Recently, the relationship between music and nonmusical cognitive abilities has been highly debated. It has been documented that formal music training would improve verbal, mathematical or visuospatial performance in children. In the experiments described here, we tested if visual perception and imagery abilities were enhanced in adult musicians compared with nonmusicians. In our main experiment, we measured reaction times of subjects who had to detect on which side of a horizontal or a vertical line a target dot was flashed. In the “imagery” condition the reference line disappeared before the target dot was presented. In order to accomplish the task, subjects had to keep a mental …
Optokinetic stimulation affects temporal estimation in healthy humans
2007
The representation of time and space are closely linked in the cognitive system. Optokinetic stimulation modulates spatial attention in healthy subjects and patients with spatial neglect. In order to evaluate whether optokinetic stimulation could influence time perception, a group of healthy subjects performed "time-comparison" tasks of sub- and supra-second intervals before and after leftward or rightward optokinetic stimulation. Subjective time perception was biased by the direction of optokinetic stimulation. Rightward optokinetic stimulation induced an overestimation of time perception compared with baseline and leftward optokinetic stimulation. These results indicate a directional bias…
Age Differences in Learning from Instructional Animations
2015
Summary: The present study tests the effects of the decline of executive functions and spatial abilities with aging on the comprehension of a complex instructional animation. An animation of a piano mechanism was presented individually to 33 young adults and 31 elderly participants. Two presentation speeds of the animation (normal and slow) were compared in a 2×2 experimental design. Eye movements were recorded during the learning time. Then, four executive function tests (inhibition, shifting, updating, and processing speed) and a spatial ability test (differential aptitude test) were undertaken by each participant. Results showed that the comprehension of animations was significantly affe…
Attention Switching and Multimedia Learning: The Impact of Executive Resources on the Integrative Comprehension of Texts and Pictures
2014
The ability to flexibly allocate attention to goal-relevant information is pivotal for the completion of high-level cognitive processes. For instance, in comprehending illustrated texts, the reader permanently has to switch the attentional focus between the text and the corresponding picture in order to extract relevant information from both sources. Thus, the hypothesis was tested that individuals with a lower switching capacity exhibit a decreased performance in tasks that require the flexible switch of attention between two external representations. Participants read an illustrated text and answered questions that either required the extraction of information from the text alone or from …
Cueing complex animations: Does direction of attention foster learning processes?
2011
Abstract The time course of learners’ processing of a complex animation was studied using a dynamic diagram of a piano mechanism. Over successive repetitions of the material, two forms of cueing (standard colour cueing and anti-cueing) were administered either before or during the animated segment of the presentation. An uncued group and two other control conditions were also employed. Development of an internal representation of the movements depicted in the animation was evaluated through participant demonstrations of the mechanism’s operation on a replica piano mechanism. Eye tracking (fixation lengths) indicated that overall, conventional visuospatially-based cueing was largely ineffect…
The role of literacy skills in adolescents' mathematics word problem performance – Controlling for visuo-spatial ability and mathematics anxiety
2014
Abstract The aim of the present study is to examine the relationship between eighth-grade adolescents' literacy skills and mathematics word problem performance. Moreover, visuo-spatial ability and mathematics anxiety were considered as covariates. According to the analyses of (co)variance, literacy skills were significantly associated with mathematics word problem skills among the 99 8th grade participants of the study. It is primarily for boys that reading comprehension skill predicts success in solving math word problems, while technical reading predicts both calculation skill and word problem solving skill across genders. Visuo-spatial ability was not a significant covariate in either of…