Suchergebnisse

The impact of verbal and spatial abilities on the communication of route information was investigated using a two-part procedure. Initially, subjects were selected for inclusion in four groups based on their combination of spatial and verbal abilities. Subsequently, the performance of high spatial-high verbal, high spatial-low verbal, low spatial-high verbal, and low spatial-low verbal subjects was measured on tasks requiring the comprehension and production of route directions. No differences were found with regard to subjects' abilities to comprehend route directions. However, the results suggested that spatial abilities are very important in the production of efficient route directions and that verbal abilities are related to subjects' tendency to conform to certain proposed linguistic conventions regarding the communication of route knowledge.

The expression of students' configurational knowledge of their university campus was investigated in the context of a direction and distance estimation task using a projective convergence technique, which involved the coordination of estimates made from multiple standpoints. Analyses of results indicated few differences between freshmen and upperclassmen with regard to performance in the environment itself but superior performance by upperclassmen when the task was performed as a perspective-taking task in the laboratory. Issues concerning the basis for sex differences in macrospatial ability and the relationship between spatial knowledge and the experimental tasks used to externalize that knowledge are also discussed.