We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
This chapter reviews research on spatial abilities, which is concerned with individual differences in how people mentally represent and manipulate spatial information to perform cognitive tasks. We first review factor analytic studies of spatial abilities. This research tradition provided strong evidence that spatial ability is differentiated from general intelligence and that it is not a single, undifferentiated construct, but instead is composed of several somewhat separate abilities. We next review analyses of performance on spatial abilities tests by cognitive psychologists, which has shown that different spatial abilities may depend more or less on speed of processing, strategies, quality of spatial images, active maintenance of spatial information, and central executive processes. Third, we examine individual differences in large-scale or environmental spatial abilities such as wayfinding and navigation. Research on this topic has begun to characterize the factor structure of large-scale spatial abilities and these abilities’ relation to more traditional measures of spatial abilities. Finally, we consider some of the functions of spatial ability in occupational and academic performance, including surgery, mechanical reasoning, and mathematical problem solving.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
