Laterality, sex, and everyday spatial behaviours: an exploratory analysis.

Exploratory analyses of a 126-item self-report assessment of difficulty of spatial behaviours (revision of the Everyday Spatial Behavioral Questionnaire, ESBQ) were used to examine principal components and the underlying root structure of perceived spatial competencies. We also examined laterality measures (handedness, footedness, and earedness), sex, and age as predictors of spatial behaviour component scores. 12 principal components were identified that represented facets of spatial behaviour and perception.

Exploratory study of the relations between spatial ability and drawing from memory.

Test scores of 119 students, attending either a public four-year college or a technical school, were related to their proportionality and detail drawing scores on the Memory for Designs Test. In regression models, the ETS Maze Tracing, Eliot-Price Mental Rotations, and Bender-Gestalt tests were consistent predictors of proportionality scores, with the latter two tests uniquely related to these. The ETS Shapes Memory Test and the Form Board Test were the strongest predictors for detail accuracy scores.

Development of an Everyday Spatial Behavioral Questionnaire.

The authors developed a 12-category, 116-item critical incident questionnaire of spatial behavior. The authors administered the Everyday Spatial Behavioral Questionnaire (ESBQ) to volunteer undergraduates (114 women, and 31 men) and tests of spatial ability to establish both the reliability and construct validity of the instrument. The authors found that Cronbach's alpha across the subscale scores was .

Handedness and spatial ability: differential patterns of relationships.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to add to our understanding of hemispheric specialisation by examining the relationships between functional laterality (as measured by handedness, eyedness, earedness, and footedness) and spatial tests. A total of 55 males and 170 females were tested for laterality preferences and spatial test performance using a range of six spatial tests. There was a statistically significant relationship between each of the laterality measures employed, with handedness and footedness demonstrating the most robust association.

About spatial intelligence: I.

Spatial intelligence is characterized in terms of a continuum of research perspectives which range from a physiological or sensory awareness to a complex thought and cultural emphasis.

Preliminary identification of nonlinear correlations for spatial tests and reaction-time tasks.

Scores on three spatial tests (mental rotation, embedded figures, and gestalt completion) were significantly correlated with four same-different reaction-time tasks in a sample of 48 female university students. Scores on the Vandenberg-Kuse mental rotation test correlated best with a one-different-all-different task, embedded figures with a one-different-all-same task, and the gestalt completion with a one-same-all-same task, suggesting that the strategies subjects employ for each spatial test are similar to the strategies they use in each of the same-different tasks with which their scores correlate best. Present results support the position that stronger correlations than previously noted between scores on spatial tests and reaction-time tasks are observed when matching the tests and tasks in terms of hypothesized underlying processes.

An exploratory study of undergraduates' attributions of success or failure on spatial tests.

Seven spatial tests from the CTY Spatial Test Battery and four subscales of an attribution scale were administered to 23 female and 28 male undergraduates. Three hypotheses were tested. The seven spatial tests and three of the attribution subscales were found reliable; sex differences were found for the spatial tests but not the attribution scales; and subjects' attributions did not predict spatial performance.

A composite Gestalt completion test.

Most existing Gestalt completion tests contain items which have content recognizable 50 years ago but now are difficult for subjects to recognize. Four well-known Gestalt completion tests were examined and a composite test of the more familiar items among the tests was compiled and then administered to university students. The Cronbach alpha for the 21 selected items was .

Cognitive correlates of complexity of children's drawings.

240 children (60 each at ages 4, 6, 8, and 10 years) were administered Dennis' (1987) Five Drawing Tasks and five additional developmental tasks. Three hypotheses were tested: that object recognition and working memory would be related to increasing complexity, that both would load on separate factors, and that higher-order analyses would indicate an underlying second-order spatial factor. Analysis included very strong zero-order correlations with age.

Written expression in boys with attention deficit disorder.

32 boys, between the ages of 8 and 13 years, were identified on four teachers' and parents' rating scales (including the diagnostic criteria of the DSM-III for ADD) as showing attention deficits and hyperactivity (ADD + H; n = 10), attention deficits without hyperactivity (ADD-H; n = 11), or without ADD (attention deficits controls; n = 11). All subjects were administered Bender's Visual-motor Gestalt test and the Written Language Assessment. The ADD + H children produced significantly more errors on the Bender-Gestalt test, and both groups with attention deficits had lower (poorer) scores on most of the written language subtests.

Comparison of related perceptual tests.

117 female and 76 male undergraduates were administered the ETS Hidden Figures, ETS Gestalt Completion, Harshman Figures, and the SEK Test. Results were interpreted as indicating that the two types of perceptual tests (flexibility and speed) were not factorially independent as the SEK Test correlations did not load upon the same factor as that for the ETS Hidden Figures Test. Men scored higher on the Hidden Figures and Harshman Figures but on the Gestalt completion task left-handed men and right-handed women scored higher.

Extraversion-introversion and spatial intelligence.

The purpose of this study was to assess whether extraversion-introversion is related to spatial intelligence. First-year psychology students (58 men, 108 women) in an open-admission community college responded to a battery of black and white and color spatial ability tests, and the Eysenck Personality Inventory. As hypothesized, a small but significant relationship was found between scores on extraversion and on the SEK Test (colored spatial test).

Case's developmental model and children's drawings.

109 children in four age groups were administered two memory measures designed by Case in 1985, the Beery Visual Motor Integration Test and five drawing tasks from Dennis. Scores on working memory were correlated positively with age; children's drawings corresponded to Case's four developmental substages; and a direct relationship was found between the children's drawings and their performance on the psychometric measure of visuomotor integration. These findings are interpreted as evidence that important developmental changes in children's drawing can reliably illuminate changes in intellectual development.

Individuation and adult children of alcoholics.

42 adult male and 99 female volunteers from the Washington and Baltimore areas were administered the Psychological Separation Inventory, the Personal Authority in the Family System Questionnaire, the Adult Child of Alcoholics Screening Test, the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test, and the Symptom-Checklist-90--R in a study of variables associated with the development of psychopathology of adult children of alcoholics. Individuation evolving from family dynamics rather than from intrapsychic individuation was more crucial to the development of psychopathology.

Surgical wound infection rates in dogs and cats. Data from a teaching hospital.

Two thousand sixty-three surgical procedures were performed on 1992 patients (1715 dogs and 277 cats). In a retrospective analysis, the procedures were categorized according to the expected degree of wound contamination, and corresponding wound infection rates were determined. The number of procedures in each category and the percent that became infected were as follows: clean (1100, 2.

Development of a new spatial test.

The development of a new colored spatial test is described. Some psychometric characteristics of this new test are presented from a correlational study, and some suggestions about its incorporation into research are offered.

Stability over age and sex of children's responses to embedded figures test.

240 children in Grades K to 4 were administered the entire Children's Embedded Figures Test to determine whether similar factor structures are obtained from samples of different sex and age as well as when the population is randomly split. Data were analyzed by principal axis factor analysis and relevant factor structures were compared using Veldman's 1967 program "Relate". There was one stable factor which was consistent across sex and accounted for about 19% of the variance.

Factor structure of shortened Children's Embedded Figures Test for different age groups.

240 children, 24 of each sex in Grades K to 4, were administered the entire Children's Embedded Figures Test, regardless of the failure rule. Factor loadings for items from a shortened version of the test were examined for a randomly divided sample, a sample divided by sex, a sample divided in two grade groupings, and an undivided total population. Stable factors were found for the total sample and when the sample was divided by sex.

Contribution of figural proportion, figural memory, figure-ground perception and severity of hearing loss to performance on spatial tests.

348 adolescents, 176 male and 172 female, were administered six different spatial tests. Awareness of figural proportion, figural memory, and figure-ground perception contributed significantly to performance on spatial visualization tests but not to performance on spatial orientation tests. Similarly, severity of hearing loss was correlated with scores on visualization tests but not on spatial-orientation tests.

Relationships between experiences, processing style, and sex-related differences in performance on spatial tests.

53 female and 45 male undergraduates were administered the Spatial Antecedents Questionnaire (Activities, Academic Courses, Self-assessments, and Environmental Mapping subscales), the Spatial Dimensionality Test (Embedded Figures, Card Rotations, Paper Folding, Surface Development, Horizontal/Vertical Rotations, and Cube Perspectives subtests), and Revised-Individual Differences Questionnaire of Paivio. Scores from the Academic Courses and Self-assessment scales accounted for the most variability in spatial performance. Visual processing style correlated with performance on spatial tests for men, but not for women.

Intuition, cognitive style, and hemispheric processing.

200 undergraduate volunteers were administered Westcott's Test of Intuitive Ability, Witkin's Group Embedded Figures Test, Paivio's Revised Individual Differences Questionnaire, and visual and aural dominance measures using a three-field tachistoscope and dichotic listening device, respectively. Field dependence was consistently related to poorer intuitive performance. No sex-related differences were found on intuition, embedded figures, Paivio's questionnaire, or dominance scores although the amount of intuition explained by cognitive style and dominance differed by hand and gender.

Children's embedded figures test: an examination of item difficulty in grades K-4.

Indices of item difficulty for both the Tent and the House series of the Children's Embedded Figures Test are reported from a sample of 240 children in grades K-4. Results indicate that the failure rule should be re-considered and the test shortened.

A classification of object and environmental spatial tests.

A classification of object and environment spatial tests was derived from a comparison of 187 object tests and 11 environment tests, and a grouping of these tests was obtained from an examination of the perceived differences in their stimulus dimensionality and the inferred similarities of their task requirements.