PROJECT ID: EDU2013-46437-R
Funding Body: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spanish Government)
Host institution: UNED (Dpt. Psicología Básica I)
PI 1: María José Contreras Alcalde
PI 2: M. Rosa Elosúa de Juan
Duration: From 01/01/2014 to 12/31/2016
Title: Visuospatial skills: developmental factors, cognitive and emotional influence and benefits of training.
Summary: Recent studies (i.e., Cheng & Mix, 2013; Uttal et al., 2012) demonstrate the plasticity of visuospatial abilities and the effects that training could have on the transfer of cognitive benefits to other academic disciplines where spatial thinking can be a key element (e.g. mathematical or mechanical reasoning). Furthermore, it has been shown that there are emotional factors which may influence visuospatial processing ranging from a more basic and not necessarily concious level, such as the influence of the up-down vertical dimension (associating up-positive/down-negative), to the influence of anxiety on spatial problems. This "spatial anxiety" has an impact on academic achievement in disciplines which involve problemsolving and where spatial skills play an important role, such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Given that these are the disciplines that most enhance the scientific and technological development of a country, knowing the cognitive and emotional factors that influence performance and reducing spatial anxiety would have a direct impact on the frequency with which students orientate towards higher studies in these disciplines. Moreover, this frequency is also influenced by the gender effect systematically found in spatial abilities (women obtain a worse average performance, which relates, in turn, with the lower frequency with which women pursue technical careers). The current EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, called Horizon 2020, points out that one of society’s challenges is to improve the welfare and quality of life of citizens and considers education and development as a cross-cutting objectives.
SPACEDUCATION
The present project focuses specifically on the social relevance and scope of the malleability of visuospatial skills, addressing the study of developmental and emotional factors in such skills, using training with educational and development purpose, and covering some needs that will be developed later. The project’s objectives are: 1. To design a specific training program for a mental rotation spatial task and apply it to at least two age samples to empirically test its relationship with other general intelligence, visuospatial working memory, spatial reasoning and numerical reasoning tests. 2. To analyze the effect that specific training in a spatial task has on academic performance, especially in the core subjects of Mathematics, Language and Science. 3. To examine developmental aspects in the development of spatial skills throughout the life cycle, studying the effect of age and gender on the initial spatial ability and training benefits. 4. To evaluate the durability and transfer of spatial training to see if it is effective over time and can be generalized to other different training tasks. 5. To check the effect of emotional factors such as "spatial anxiety" both in spatial task performance and in academic performance in disciplines where these emotional factors may play a key role (e.g. math or science). 6. To evaluate the electrophysiological correlates and cognitive mechanisms in spatial rotation and their relations with task’s solution strategies. 7. To analyze the role of emotional factors at a basic, level in the processing of stimuli according to their position on the vertical axis.