Spatial Reasoning in early childhood

This document is about how children develop spatial reasoning in early childhood (birth to 7 years) and how practitioners working with young children can support this. Spatial reasoning is a vital and often overlooked aspect of mathematics. So this toolkit, which is informed by extensive review of research in this areas, will support practitioners to enhance children's early mathematical learning. For the full Spatial Reasoning toolkit: https://earlymaths.org/spatial-reasoning/

Spatial Thinking as a Path Towards Computational Thinking

Considering what we know about computational thinking, how much of this cognitive domain hangs on one's ability to think spatially? Is spatial thinking a hidden foundational property for developing strong computational thinking skills? If coding is the new literacy for 21st century thinking, educators must diversify their methodology of instruction. Mathematics must not be the only pathway to computational thinking, computer science, and coding. This book chapter opens up new insight into spatial reasoning, showing it as a new viable method to give students the computational thinking skills necessary to thrive in STEM fields. Finally, this chapter presents concepts found in shape grammars as a methodology used to teach students how to approach art and design computationally. With shape, grammars we find computational thinking at the center of creative activities.

Connecting Spatial Reasoning Process to Geometric Problem

The field of spatial reasoning has seen a lot of research. The process of spatial reasoning, on the other hand, needs to be investigated further. The goal of this study is to capture an elementary school student's spatial reasoning process when solving geometric problems. The spatial skills used in solving geometric problems were also identified in this study. A geometric test was given to seventeen elementary school students. Three participants were chosen as the study's subjects based on their written responses. According to the findings, the subject's spatial reasoning process always begins with the processing of information in mental visualization. Mental visualization is used to help with orientation and selecting the appropriate visual perspective. The spatial skills of spatial visualization and spatial orientation are critical in spatial reasoning. Furthermore, this research initiated the emphasis on the focus of spatial reasoning in the process.

Deriving topological relations from topologically augmented direction relation matrices

Topological relations and direction relations represent two pieces of the qualitative spatial reasoning triumvirate. Researchers have previously attempted to use the direction relation matrix to derive a topological relation, finding that no single direction relation matrix can isolate a particular topological relation. In this paper, the technique of topological augmentation is applied to the same problem, identifying a unique topological relation in 28.6% of all topologically augmented direction relation matrices, and furthermore achieving a reduction in a further 40.4% of topologically augmented direction relation matrices when compared to their vanilla direction relation matrix counterpart.

Consequential Impacts of Tobacco Use on Cognitive Performance

Tobacco use represents a pernicious lifestyle factor that may influence processes of aging, including cognitive functioning. As individuals tend to start smoking before adulthood, it may serve as an important factor in cognitive development and maintenance. We explored smoking history-cognition associations in a sample approaching midlife. Study data was derived from the Colorado Adoption/Twin Study of Lifespan behavioral development and cognitive aging (CATSLife 1; N = 1195 [53% F]; x̄age = 33.2 years, SD = 5.0). All cognitive measures were t-scored covering working memory, spatial reasoning, processing speed (WAIS-III Digit Span, Block Design, and Digit Symbol, and Colorado Perceptual Speed) and episodic memory domains (Picture Memory, immediate and delayed). Tobacco use measures included ever-smokers, current-smokers, and log-transformed packyears. Mixed-effects regression models were applied, accounting for sex, age, race, ethnicity, and clustering among siblings. Tobacco use was associated with worse episodic memory, spatial and speed performance, but not working memory. When educational attainment was included, patterns remained consistent though attenuated. Results suggested current-smokers scored 0.27 to 0.36 SD lower than non-smokers on speed and spatial reasoning tasks. Episodic memory performance was reduced by approximately 0.07 to 0.1 SD per log packyear. In a sample approaching midlife, the harmful impacts of tobacco use on cognitive performance may be already apparent with cumulative impacts of packyears on episodic memory and current smoking associated with spatial and speed performance. This work helps to elucidate the temporal associations of an important lifestyle factor that may influence cognitive functioning prior to midlife.

That's the shape of it!

There may no longer be an early learning goal specifically devoted to understanding shape, space and measure, but settings are still expected to provide rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning. Here I include some of the best books on this area of learning.

A Cognitively-Inspired Model for Making Sense of Hasse Diagrams

In this paper, we present a model of the sense-making process for diagrams, and describe it for the case of Hasse diagrams. Sense-making is modeled as the construction of networks of conceptual blends among image schemas and the diagram’s geometric configuration. As a case study, we specify four image schemas and the geometric configuration of a Hasse diagram, with typed FOL theories. In addition, for the diagram geometry, we utilise Qualitative Spatial Reasoning formalisms. Using an algebraic specification language, we can compute conceptual blends as category-theoretic colimits. Our model approaches sense-making as a process where the image schemas and the diagram geometry both structure each other through a complex network of conceptual blends. This yields a final blend in which the sort of inferences we confer to diagrammatic representations emerge. We argue that this approach to sense-making in diagrams is more cognitively apt than the mainstream view of a diagram being a syntactic representation of some underlying logical semantics. Moreover, our model could be applied to various types of stimuli and is thus valuable for the general field of AI.

Individuals use different spatial reference frames on different axes: Evidence from indigenous Amazonians

The physical properties of space may be universal, but the way people conceptualize space is variable. In some groups, people tend to use egocentric space (e.g. left, right) to encode the locations of objects, while in other groups, people encode the same spatial scene using allocentric space (e.g. upriver, downriver). These different spatial frames of reference (FoRs) characterize the way people talk about spatial relations and the way they think about them, even when they are not using language. Although spatial language and spatial reasoning tend to covary, the root causes of this variation are unclear. Here we propose that variation in FoR use partly reflects the discriminability of the relevant spatial continua. In an initial test of this proposal in a group of indigenous Bolivians, we compared FoR use across spatial axes that are known to differ in discriminability. In both verbal and nonverbal tests, participants spontaneously used different FoRs on different spatial axes: On the lateral axis, where egocentric (left-right) discrimination is difficult, their spatial behavior and language was predominantly allocentric; on the sagittal axis, where egocentric (front-back) discrimination is relatively easy, they were predominantly egocentric. These findings challenge the claim that each language group can be characterized by a predominant spatial frame of reference. Rather, both spatial memory and language can differ categorically across axes, even within the same individuals. We suggest that differences in spatial discrimination can explain differences in both spatial memory and language within and across human groups.