scholarly journals Enhanced Spatial Navigation Skills in Sequence-Space Synesthetes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eline van Petersen ◽  
Mareike Altgassen ◽  
Rob van Lier ◽  
Tessa M. van Leeuwen
Keyword(s):  
Sequence Space ◽  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Consistency Test ◽  
Visuospatial Abilities ◽  
Enhanced Sensitivity ◽  
Cognitive Benefits ◽  
Egocentric Navigation ◽  
Virtual Morris Water Maze

Individuals with sequence-space synesthesia (SSS) perceive sequences like months, days and numbers in certain spatial arrangements. Several cognitive benefits have been associated with SSS, such as enhanced mental rotation, more vivid visual imagery and an advantage in spatial processing. The current study aimed to further investigate these cognitive benefits, focusing on spatial navigation skills, to explore if their enhanced sensitivity to spatial relations is reflected in enhanced navigational performance. Synesthetes were distinguished from controls by means of a questionnaire, a consistency test and drawings. A virtual Morris Water Maze (MWM) task with two allocentric and two egocentric navigation conditions was used to assess spatial navigation abilities. For the allocentric tasks, participants had to use object cues to find a hidden platform and for the egocentric tasks, they had to use their own position as a reference. Results showed that synesthetes performed significantly better compared to controls on the allocentric and egocentric tasks that reflected real life situations more accurately. However, this significant result was only found for the time taken to find the platform and not for the length of the path that was taken. In exploratory analyses, no significant relations were found between task performance and the specific features of the manifestation of each individual’s synesthesia. Our hypothesis that synesthetes with the ability to mentally rotate their spatial arrangements would perform better on the allocentric task was not confirmed. Results add to the growing body of literature concerning the cognitive benefits of SSS and are consistent with the possibility that enhanced spatial navigation skills emerge from generally enhanced visuospatial abilities in SSS.

scholarly journals Neurocognitive Treatment for a Patient with Alzheimer's Disease Using a Virtual Reality Navigational Environment

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. JEN.S40827 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J.F. White ◽  
Zahra Moussavi
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Treatment Program ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Cognitive Improvement ◽  
Cognitive Benefits

In this case study, a man at the onset of Alzheimer's disease (AD) was enrolled in a cognitive treatment program based upon spatial navigation in a virtual reality (VR) environment. We trained him to navigate to targets in a symmetric, landmark-less virtual building. Our research goals were to determine whether an individual with AD could learn to navigate in a simple VR navigation (VRN) environment and whether that training could also bring real-life cognitive benefits. The results show that our participant learned to perfectly navigate to desired targets in the VRN environment over the course of the training program. Furthermore, subjective feedback from his primary caregiver (his wife) indicated that his skill at navigating while driving improved noticeably and that he enjoyed cognitive improvement in his daily life at home. These results suggest that VRN treatments might benefit other people with AD.

Real-life memory and spatial navigation in patients with focal epilepsy: Ecological validity of a virtual reality supermarket task

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 57-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Grewe ◽  
D. Lahr ◽  
A. Kohsik ◽  
E. Dyck ◽  
H.J. Markowitsch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Focal Epilepsy ◽  
Ecological Validity ◽  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
Real Life

The Learning-Specific Inner Speech Scale (LISS)

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-716
Author(s):  
Xue Xiang ◽  
Thomas M. Brinthaupt ◽  
Sumin Sun ◽  
Xuezhu Ren
Keyword(s):  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Adolescent And Young Adult ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Inner Speech ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Consistency Test ◽  
Context Data ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Test Retest Reliability

Abstract. Theory and research suggest that inner speech plays a prominent role in students’ learning. To facilitate research on inner speech within learning and academic contexts, we developed a Learning-specific Inner Speech Scale (LISS) used for assessing students spanning a broad range of ages. The LISS takes a functional view of inner speech, assessing the frequency of social-assessing, self-critical, self-reinforcing, and self-managing inner speech in the learning context. Data from three studies based on the child, adolescent, and young adult samples demonstrated that the LISS exhibits acceptable psychometric properties in terms of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct and content validities. In addition, the LISS is age-sensitive and demonstrates a favorably predictive validity for students’ real-life learning performance. The LISS provides researchers and practitioners a useful tool for exploring verbal thinking and its relationships with learning strategies and performance.

Spatial Cognition as Events

1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Böök
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Cognition ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Perceptual Identification ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Spatial Choice ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives

This chapter deals with the question of how adults process information about large-scale physical features and their spatial relations during navigation between places. The presentation is based on the presumption that single acts of cognition are comparatively unimportant in real-life travel. Accordingly, sequential relations between acts are emphasized, which is the reason for the term event in the title. In general, ways of seeing how spatial cognition is organized in time and space should further the search for connections between the fields of spatial cognition, environmental assessment and action. However, the latter prospect is beyond the scope of this chapter. The aim—to make explicit the sequence aspect of cognitive acts in several problem areas of spatial cognition—is pursued in a spirit of inductive analysis in that a number of act sequences are discussed as examples of important spatial cognition events. The approach is first described in broad outline. Processing of large-scale spatial information may entail different theoretical perspectives on levels of mental functioning. Basic mechanisms and operations that underlie the occurrence of cognitive acts represent one level, being the main focus of contemporary theory construction and model building. Further, cognitive acts are reflected in conscious activity and self-consciousness, which represent a second level. Finally, a third level emerges to the extent that cognitive acts are reliably ordered continuously in time and space. Common categories of acts in large-scale spatial cognition are perceptual identification, encoding, recognition, and recall of environmental information, judgments of topological, projective, and metric spatial relations, spatial inference, visual-spatial imagery, and spatial choice. Detailed processing underlying these cognitive acts is progressively unraveled by means of refined task paradigms, deductive reasoning, mathematics, and procedures for controlling subjects’ behavioral and mental activities. This kind of knowledge is sparse in the field of large-scale spatial cognition (Pick, 1985). Independent variables in experiments have been related as often to issues of development, the structure of location information in cognitive maps, methodology, or application as to the nature of processing per se (cf. Evans, 1980). In the long run, theory about underlying processing is indispensible for any of these concerns, including the event approach to be presented here.

scholarly journals Human Hippocampal and Parahippocampal Theta during Goal-Directed Spatial Navigation Predicts Performance on a Virtual Morris Water Maze

2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (23) ◽  
pp. 5983-5990 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. R. Cornwell ◽  
L. L. Johnson ◽  
T. Holroyd ◽  
F. W. Carver ◽  
C. Grillon
Keyword(s):  
Morris Water Maze ◽  
Water Maze ◽  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
Virtual Morris Water Maze

Human spatial navigation deficits after traumatic brain injury shown in the arena maze, a virtual Morris water maze

Brain Injury ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald W. Skelton ◽  
Shelley P. Ross ◽  
Ludek Nerad ◽  
Sharon A. Livingstone
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Brain Injury ◽  
Brain Injury ◽  
Morris Water Maze ◽  
Water Maze ◽  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
Virtual Morris Water Maze

scholarly journals Missing the egocentric spatial reference: a blank on the map

F1000Research ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Concetta Miniaci ◽  
Elvira De Leonibus
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Memory ◽  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Spatial Reference ◽  
Pathological Aging ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Navigation Strategy ◽  
Aging Conditions ◽  
Egocentric Navigation ◽  
Age Related Cognitive Decline

Egocentric (self-centered) and allocentric (viewpoint independent) representations of space are essential for spatial navigation and wayfinding. Deficits in spatial memory come with age-related cognitive decline, are marked in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and are associated with cognitive deficits in autism. In most of these disorders, a change in the brain areas engaged in the spatial reference system processing has been documented. However, the spatial memory deficits observed during physiological and pathological aging are quite different. While patients with AD and MCI have a general spatial navigation impairment in both allocentric and egocentric strategies, healthy older adults are particularly limited in the allocentric navigation, but they can still count on egocentric navigation strategy to solve spatial tasks. Therefore, specific navigational tests should be considered for differential diagnosis between healthy and pathological aging conditions. Finally, more research is still needed to better understand the spatial abilities of autistic individuals.

Spatial training using game play in preschoolers improves computational skills

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharlene D. Newman ◽  
Erin Loughery ◽  
Ambur Ecklund ◽  
Marriah Smothers ◽  
Jefney Ongeri
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Mathematical Thinking ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Kindergarten Readiness ◽  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Readiness Assessment ◽  
Block Play ◽  
Cognitive Benefits ◽  
Building Activities

Previous studies have found that block play results in better spatial ability which may lead to greater mathematical skills. The current study examined a specific type of block play, structured block play in which a copy of a block configuration is constructed. Structured block play is a difficult cognitive task that requires an understanding of spatial relations, hand-eye coordination, and spatial working memory among others. This preliminary study was designed to determine whether training using structure block play would lead to improvements in skills linked to mathematical thinking. Two groups of children participated in the study. One group played a competitive structured block building game once a week for 8 weeks. A control group was also tested. All participants completed a kindergarten readiness assessment before and after the 8-week period. Children in the block play group showed significant improvements in the computation module of the assessment. No such effect was observed for the control group. The results presented demonstrate that young children can, with assistance, engage in structured block play and that they have cognitive benefits from such block building activities.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document