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CHILDREN'S USE OF FEATURE DESCRIPTIONS TO SOLVE SPATIAL PERSPECTIVE AND ROTATION PROBLEMS
Author(s) -
IVES S. W.,
RAKOW J.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
british journal of educational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.557
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 2044-8279
pISSN - 0007-0998
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1983.tb02545.x
Subject(s) - mental rotation , perspective (graphical) , task (project management) , psychology , feature (linguistics) , object (grammar) , cognitive psychology , spatial ability , artificial intelligence , communication , linguistics , computer science , cognition , philosophy , management , neuroscience , economics
S ummary . To examine further the use of feature descriptions in spatial problem‐solving, 96 children (equal numbers of boys and girls, kindergartners and second graders) were asked to solve either a spatial perspective task (indicating another's view) or a rotation task (imagining an object's rotation and one's own subsequent view) through either verbal description or picture selection. The results indicate that verbalisation leads to substantially more correct responses on all conditions of the perspective task, but only selectively in the rotation task. The results suggest that language facilitates performance in the perspective task because it maps on to feature descriptions (e.g., front vs. back of an object) which greatly facilitate perspective task performance. A pattern of interactions between task, response media, the use of objects with and without familiar feature descriptions and the availability of simple or complex feature descriptions to describe the correct response suggests two important factors in determining complexity in spatial problem‐solving: the simplicity and explicitness of feature descriptions.