Chiara Meneghetti

Visuospatial working memory and mental representation of spatial descriptions

The purpose of the present research is to investigate whether different components of working memory (WM) are involved in processing spatial and nonspatial texts. The interference effects of two concurrent tasks on comprehension and recall of two kinds of text were investigated in two experiments. Each participant listened to a spatial and a nonspatial text, with one of two concurrent tasks: articulatory suppression or spatial tapping. The dependent variables in Experiment 1 were accuracy of recall and verification of information inferred from the texts. In Experiment 2 response times in the verification task were also considered. Results support the hypothesis that verbal and spatial components of working memory are differentially involved in the comprehension and memory of spatial and nonspatial texts, with a selective interference effect of the spatial concurrent task on the spatial text and an interference effect of the verbal concurrent task on both the spatial and nonspatial texts. These effects emerged for recall, sentence verification, and response times. Our findings confirm previous results showing that the verbal component of working memory is involved in the process of text comprehension and memory. In addition, they show that visuospatial working memory is involved, in so far as the text conveys visuospatial information.

Representation of survey and route spatial descriptions in children with nonverbal (visuospatial) learning disabilities.

This study aims to investigate the types of difficulty encountered by children with nonverbal (visuospatial) learning disabilities (NLD) during the processing of spatial information derived from descriptions. Two spatial descriptions--one in survey, one in route perspective--and one nonspatial description were orally presented to children aged 9-12 divided in three groups: (i) with NLD (N=12), (ii) with reading disability (RD) (N=11), and (iii) without learning disabilities who served as controls (N=16). Children performed two tasks: sentence verification and location. In the verification task, NLD performed worse in survey text than control and RD groups. Moreover, in the location task NLD were worse than controls in both survey and route descriptions, but significantly poorer than the RD group only in the survey description. The results are discussed considering their implications in understanding the neuropsychological profile of NLD and the processes involved by different types of spatial descriptions.

Spatial Abilities across the Adult Life Span.

The study investigates age-related effects across the adult life span on spatial abilities (testing subabilities based on a distinction between spatial visualization, mental rotation, and perspective taking) and spatial self-assessments. The sample consisted of 454 participants (223 women and 231 men) from 20 to 91 years of age. Results showed nonlinear age-related effects for spatial visualization and perspective taking but linear effects for mental rotation; few or no age-related effects were found for spatial self-assessments. Working memory accounted for only a small proportion of the variance in all spatial tasks and had no effect on spatial self-assessments. Overall, our findings suggest that the influence of age on spatial skills across the adult life span is considerable, but the effects of age change as a function of the spatial task considered, and the effect on spatial self-assessment is more marginal.

Working memory involvement in spatial text processing: What advantages are gained from extended learning and visuo‐spatial strategies?

The study investigates the relationships between working memory (WM), amount of learning, and strategies used in spatial description. WM involvement and strategies reported were assumed to change, depending on whether the text learning was extensive or limited. Two experiments were carried out using dual-task paradigm: participants listened to spatial text three times and concurrently one group performed a spatial concurrent task, one group a verbal task (to measure WM involvement), and one group no secondary task. In Experiment 1, participants listened three consecutive times then performed recall tasks (one verbal - verification test; one spatial - graphical representation). In Experiment 2, recall tasks were performed after first and third listening. The strategies used were ascertained through a questionnaire. Results showed that the verification test was impaired by the verbal concurrent task after listening three times (Experiment 1) and after first listening (Experiment 2). The graphical representation performance was impaired by verbal and spatial concurrent tasks, detected only after listening three times, not after a single time (Experiments 1 and 2). The strategies most used were visuo-spatial; their relationship with WM changes as a function of number of times of listening. Overall, the results showed that extensive learning allows construction of a spatial mental representation that is modulated by WM and strategies.

Working memory components in survey and route spatial text processing

Imagine you are a tourist walking around an unfamiliarcity, and you read in your guidebook that somewhere in thecity there is a famous museum of modern art. How do youget there? You stop pedestrians and ask them. Answersmay be different. Someone might say: ‘‘You need to takethe subway, because it’s a long way from here. Go straighton, and then turn right just before the church. Go on for awhile and you’ll see the red subway sign in front ofyou….’’However, someone else might tell you somethingdifferent: ‘‘We are on the south side of the city and themuseum is in the north-east. You need to take the greenline of the subway going north, and then the yellow linegoing east….’’ In both cases, you will be able to construct amental representation of the environment and, hopefully,you will reach the museum. Indeed, giving and asking forspatial information is a common experience in everydaylife.Specialized literature widely acknowledges that theprocessing of spatial descriptions leads to the constructionof mental models with spatial properties isomorphic tothose of the environment described (Bower and Morrow1990; Mani and Johnson-Laird 1982; Morrow et al. 1989;see also Zwaan and Radvansky 1998 for a review ofresearch on the use of situation models in language com-prehension). However, as pointed out by the examplementioned earlier, spatial descriptions vary widely (Deniset al. 1999) and, in particular, they assume different per-spectives, of which the most studied are route and surveyviews (Taylor and Tversky 1992; Tversky 1991). The routeperspective takes the point of view of a person travelingwithin an environment. It uses an intrinsic frame of refer-ence and egocentric terms, such as right, left, front, andback, and has a linear organization, given by the order oflandmarks along the route itself. Instead, the survey per-spective provides an overview of the spatial layout,sometimes having a hierarchical structure, and uses anextrinsic frame of reference and canonical terms such ascompass directions.An issue still being discussed is whether the descrip-tion’s perspective affects the corresponding mental model.Most studies addressing this issue report results consistentwith an influence of the perspective on the mental repre-sentation. For example, in Bosco et al. (1996), Pazzagliaet al. (1994), and Perrig and Kintsch (1985), participantswere faster and more accurate in verifying inferentialspatial statements that adopted the same perspective of thedescription they had previously read. Instead, Taylor andTversky (1992) found that participants were as fast andaccurate in verifying inferential sentences based on thesame or different perspective adopted in the previouslyread text. The authors assumed that spatial knowledge isincorporated in abstract representations that can be viewedor visualized from several different perspectives.However, more recent studies by the same authors havesupported the notion that perspective does indeed affect thecorresponding mental representation. In Schneider andTaylor (1999), the mental models constructed from surveytexts maintained some of the properties of the text’s per-spective. Lee and Tversky (2001, 2005) obtained longerreading times when participants read spatial passagesadopting a perspective different from that of the rest of the

Strategic knowledge and consistency in students with good and poor study skills

Early adolescence is characterised by an increase in study requirements and the establishment of a systematic study method. However some students fail in study tasks. Teachers often attribute their difficulties to poor content knowledge or poor effort, without taking into consideration the specific role of study strategies. The present paper tests the hypothesis that poor study skills are related to students’ inadequate knowledge of good strategies and/or to their inconsistent use. From a sample of 354 students, aged between 12 and 15, on the basis of a study standardised test (AMOS 8–15; Cornoldi, De Beni, Zamperlin, & Meneghetti, 2005) we selected two groups of students, with good and poor study skills respectively, and we asked them to rate their knowledge and actual use of 22 good and 10 less adequate study strategies. We found that all students reported using strategies to a lesser extent than should be expected on the basis of their estimated importance, but they were all able to distinguish between poor and good strategies. However, students with poor study skills were less able to make this distinction and were less consistent in matching their knowledge to their use of strategies. It is concluded that strategic use and consistency play a crucial role in successful studying.

Map learning and the alignment effect in young and older adults: how do they gain from having a map available while performing pointing tasks?

Abstract Two studies were conducted to investigate age-related differences between young and older adults in the impact of a map being available or not while performing aligned and counter-aligned pointing tasks. In the first study, 19 young adults (aged 20–30) and 19 young–old adults (aged 65–74) studied a map and performed a pointing task. In the second, three groups of adults, 19 of them young (aged 20–30), 19 young–old (aged 65–74), and 19 old–old (aged 75–84), studied a map and performed a pointing task, first with the map available, and then without it. The results of both studies showed that young and older adults’ performance was similar in aligned pointing, while the young performed better than the older adults in counter-aligned pointing. Analyzing the types of error, results showed that older adults made more counter-aligned pointing errors than young adults, both with and without the map. Having the map available improved all participants’ performance, however. Finally, visuo-spatial working memory was found to sustain pointing performance in all age groups and map conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that older adults are specifically susceptible to the alignment effect—making more counter-aligned errors—regardless of whether or not they have a map available while performing pointing tasks.

Spatial mental representations derived from spatial descriptions: The predicting and mediating roles of spatial preferences, strategies, and abilities

The aim of this research was to investigate how spatial self-assessments and spatial cognitive abilities jointly influence the construction of mental representations derived from spatial descriptions. Two studies were conducted using the path models approach to test to what extent spatial self-assessments (Study 1, 194 participants) and the combination of the latter with spatial abilities (Study 2, 206 participants) can be modelled to predict memory for spatial descriptions. In both studies, we recorded spatial representation preferences (distinguishing between survey, route, and landmark-focused mode) and self-reported strategies used to memorize descriptions (distinguishing between survey, route, and verbal strategies); in Study 2, we also measured spatial abilities by testing mental rotation (MR) and visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM). Participants listened to spatial descriptions and then completed recall tasks. In both studies, the final path models showed that spatial preferences influenced spatial recall through the mediation of congruent strategies: that is a survey (route) preference influenced spatial recall mediated by a survey (route) strategy. MR predicted spatial recall, mediated by both VSWM and survey strategy (Study 2). Overall, these findings indicate that spatial preferences (particularly for a survey mode) in association with spatial abilities effectively concur to help form mental representations derived from spatial descriptions.

Mental representations derived from spatial descriptions: the influence of orientation specificity and visuospatial abilities

This study aimed to investigate the orientation dependence effect and the role of visuospatial abilities in mental representations derived from spatial descriptions. The analysis focused on how the orientation effect and the involvement of visuospatial abilities change when survey and route descriptions are used, and the initial and main orientation of an imaginary tour. In Experiment 1, 48 participants listened to survey or route descriptions in which information was mainly north-oriented (matching the initial heading and main direction of travel expressed in the description). In Experiment 2, 40 participants listened to route descriptions in which the initial orientation (north-oriented) was mismatched with the main direction of travel (east-oriented). Participants performed pointing task while facing north vs south (Exp. 1 and 2), and while facing east vs west (Exp. 2), as well as a map drawing task and several visuospatial measures. In both experiments, the results showed that pointing was easier while facing north than while facing south, and map drawings were arranged with a north-up orientation (with no difference between survey and route descriptions). In Experiment 2, pointing while facing east was easier than in the other pointing conditions. The results obtained with the visuospatial tasks showed that perspective-taking (PT) skill was the main predictor of the ability to imagine positions misaligned with the direction expressed in the descriptions (i.e. pointing while facing south in Experiment 1; pointing while facing north, south or west in Experiment 2). Overall, these findings indicate that mental representations derived from spatial descriptions are specifically oriented and their orientation is influenced by the main direction of travel and by the initial orientation. These mental representations, and the adoption of counter-aligned imaginary orientations, demand visuospatial skills and PT ability in particular.

Learning a route using a map and/or description in young and older adults

The study investigates age-related differences between young and older adults in environment learning. A sample of young adults (aged 20–30 years) and older adults (aged 60–70 years) was asked to learn a route under three conditions: using a map (M), a description (D), or a map plus a description (M + D). Results showed that spatial recall performance, measured with map drawing and pointing tasks, was higher under M and M + D conditions, than under D condition. Only in the map drawing task were age-related differences modulated by the learning conditions: Young adults performed better than older adults in D, but the two groups did not differ under M or M + D conditions. In contrast, independently of age group and learning condition, participants in the pointing task made fewer errors in aligned pointing compared to counteraligned pointing, and the performance was determined by their reasoning ability. Correlation analyses indicated a differential role played by age and fluid ability depending on the learning modality and the recall task considered. Overall, our findings suggest that in environment learning, the choice of input and the type of recall task modulate age-related differences between young and older adults.