Measuring Spatial Abilities in Children: A Comparison of Mental-Rotation and Perspective-Taking Tasks.

Mental rotation (MR) and perspective taking (PT) are important spatial abilities and predictive of performance in other cognitive domains. Yet, age-appropriate measures to assess these spatial abilities in children are still rare. This study examined psychometric properties of four MR tasks in 6- to 9-year-olds ( = 96).

Measuring Spatial Perspective Taking: Analysis of Four Measures Using Item Response Theory.

Research on spatial thinking requires reliable and valid measures of individual differences in various component skills. Spatial perspective taking (PT)-the ability to represent viewpoints different from one's own-is one kind of spatial skill that is especially relevant to navigation. This study had two goals.

Development of stereo vision in young infants.

In this study, infants' visual processing of depth-inducing stimuli was tested using a new method suitable for experimental settings. Stereograms of the Lang-Stereopad were presented in a timed preferential-looking paradigm to determine infants' preference for a stereogram as compared to a stimulus not inducing an impression of depth. A total of 80 infants were tested at 7 months of age; of these, a sub-sample of 41 infants were tested longitudinally at 4 and 7 months to characterize the developmental trajectory of their preference.

Antitumor Activity of Larotrectinib in Esophageal Carcinoma with NTRK Gene Amplification.

Background: Increasing knowledge about the genomic changes underpinning cancer development and growth has led to a rapidly expanding number of individualized therapies that specifically target these changes in a patient's tumor. Here we present a case report of a patient with metastatic esophageal carcinoma whose tumor harbored NTRK1 gene amplification and who received targeted systemic therapy with larotrectinib. At initial diagnosis, the patient presented with tumor obstruction of the middle esophagus, simultaneous liver and lung metastases, UICC IV and WHO performance status 3.

Understanding of object rotation between two and three years of age.

Toddlers' understanding of object rotation was investigated using a multimethod approach. Participants were 44 toddlers between 22 and 38 months of age. In an eye-tracking task, they observed a shape that rotated and disappeared briefly behind an occluder.

Spatial transformation abilities and their relation to later mathematics performance.

Using a longitudinal approach, this study investigated the relational structure of different spatial transformation skills at kindergarten age, and how these spatial skills relate to children's later mathematics performance. Children were tested at three time points, in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade (N = 119). Exploratory factor analyses revealed two subcomponents of spatial transformation skills: one representing egocentric transformations (mental rotation and spatial scaling), and one representing allocentric transformations (e.

Spatial-numerical associations in first-graders: evidence from a manual-pointing task.

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 numbers as fast and accurately as possible, but only when the numbers were "smaller" (or "larger" in a different block) than 5.

The relation between spatial perspective taking and inhibitory control in 6-year-old children.

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 incongruent perspectives. Based on the assumption that one's own perspective has to be ignored to imagine someone else's perspective, it was investigated whether perspective taking is related to inhibitory control in 6-year-olds (N = 140).

Using mental transformation strategies for spatial scaling: Evidence from a discrimination task.

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 magnitudes. However, prior research has not accounted for possible difficulties in encoding spatial information within smaller spaces.

A Matter of Balance: Motor Control is Related to Children's Spatial and Proportional Reasoning Skills.

Recent research has shown close links between spatial and mathematical thinking and between spatial abilities and motor skills. However, longitudinal research examining the relations between motor, spatial, and mathematical skills is rare, and the nature of these relations remains unclear. The present study thus investigated the relation between children's motor control and their spatial and proportional reasoning.

The relation between spatial thinking and proportional reasoning in preschoolers.

Previous research has indicated a close link between spatial and mathematical thinking. However, what shared processes account for this link? In this study, we focused on the spatial skill of map reading and the mathematical skill of proportional reasoning and investigated whether scaling, or the ability to relate information in different-sized representations, is a shared process. Scaling was experimentally manipulated in both tasks.

Development of mental transformation abilities.

Mental representation and transformation of spatial information is often examined with mental rotation (MR) tasks, which require deciding whether a rotated image is the same as or the mirror version of an upright image. Recent research with infants shows early discrimination of objects from mirror-image versions. However, even at the age of 4 years, many children perform at near chance level on more standard measures.

Picturing perspectives: development of perspective-taking abilities in 4- to 8-year-olds.

Although the development of perspective taking has been well researched, there is no uniform methodology for assessing this ability across a wide age span when frames of reference conflict. To address this gap, we created scenes of toy photographers taking pictures of layouts of objects from different angles, and presented them to 4- to 8-year-olds (N = 80). Children were asked to choose which one of four pictures could have been taken from a specific viewpoint.

Zooming in on spatial scaling: preschool children and adults use mental transformations to scale spaces.

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. In the present study, we investigated whether children and adults use mental transformations to scale distances in space.

Mental object rotation and motor development in 8- and 10-month-old infants.

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. The current study investigated whether older infants, at 8 and 10 months, succeed in a mental rotation task after observational experience only and whether performance is related to infants' motor development. Using the violation-of-expectation paradigm, infants (N = 40) were presented with an asymmetrical object that was moved straight down behind an occluder.

Mental spatial transformations in 14- and 16-month-old infants: effects of action and observational experience.

Infants' ability to mentally track the orientation of an object during a hidden rotation was investigated (N = 28 in each experiment). A toy on a turntable was fully covered and then rotated 90°. When revealed, the toy had turned with the turntable (probable event), remained at its starting orientation (improbable event in Experiment 1), or turned to the opposite side (improbable event in Experiment 2).

Touching up mental rotation: effects of manual experience on 6-month-old infants' mental object rotation.

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.

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.

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.

The relationship between the shape of the mental number line and familiarity with numbers in 5- to 9-year old children: evidence for a segmented linear model.

This experiment aimed to expand previous findings on the development of mental number representation. We tested the hypothesis that children's familiarity with numbers is directly reflected by the shape of their mental number line. This mental number line was expected to be linear as long as numbers lay within the range of numbers children were familiar with.