James F. Herman

Adults' mental rotation of spatial information: Effects of age, sex and cerebral laterality

The mental rotation ability of young (mean age = 25.3) and elderly adults (mean age = 65.3) was assessed. Preferred cerebral hemisphere for information processing was determined by asking subjects questions designed to elicit lateral eye movements. Subjects were classified as preferring the right hemisphere, the left hemisphere, or neither hemisphere (mixed dominance). Participants were then given a task requiring them to match rotated blocks used in the Shepard and Metzler [13] experiment. Young subjects were more accurate than elderly subjects and males were more accurate than females at both age levels. There was no difference in accuracy as a function of preferred hemisphere for information processing. It was concluded that: (1) there may be no relationship between preferred hemisphere for processing and accuracy on a mental rotation task (2) there are age-related changes in the accuracy of mental rotation, and (3) males perform more accurately than females throughout adulthood on mental rotation tasks.

Children's Distance Estimates in a Large-Scale Environment A Search for the Route Angularity Effect

School children of the second grade, fourth grade, and sixth grade were tested to examine the effects of route angularity, the number of turns encountered along a path, on their time and distance estimates. In three experiments, children walked between two locations separated by different path turns and then estimated walk duration and walking distance. In Experiment 1, one path contained two turns, and the other path contained no turns; in Experiment 2, one path contained four turns, and the other path contained one turn; and in Experiment 3, one path contained eight turns, and the other path contained two turns. Distance estimates did not differ signif icantly for paths containing numerous turns relative to paths containing fewer turns (or no turns). Time estimates differed significantly only in Experiment 1, with duration estimated as greater for the path with no turns. It was concluded that the route angularity effect may not be a robust phenomenon and that future research examining this effect must be conducted under conditions in which the events encountered along a path are strictly controlled.

Spatial knowledge of young and elderly adults: Scene recognition from familiar and novel perspectives

Thirty young adults (mean age = 25.3) and 30 elderly adults (mean age = 65.3) were tested on a memory task in which they were asked to recognize environmental scenes from familiar and novel perspectives. Participants initially viewed slides of 10 business and 10 residential street intersections. Pairs of intersections were then presented and subjects were asked to select the intersection viewed previously. During the recognition phase subjects saw the intersections from the original perspective (0 degrees), rotated 90 degrees from the original perspective, or rotated 180 degrees from the original perspective. Young adults were more accurate than elderly adults and accuracy was greater for business than residential scenes at both age levels. Subjects were more accurate in the 0 than 180 degree condition, while performance in the 90 degree condition was significantly less accurate than in the other two conditions. These results indicate that (1) young adults have better recognition memory than elderly adults for real world scenes, and (2) environmental differentiation aids recognition memory for spatial locations.

The influence of affective associations on the development of cognitive maps of large environments

Abstract Anooshian and Siegel (1985) have argued that the affect associated with different environmental locations has relatively greater impact when adults initially become familiar with an environment than when they have been in that environment for an extended time period. In order to examine this hypothesis college freshmen and upperclassmen were tested. The students were asked initially to choose the four locations on their campus that they most liked and the four locations that they most disliked. They then estimated distances between each of these locations from memory. The results indicated that freshmen underestimated distances to locations associated with positive affect to a greater extent than distances to locations associated with negative affect. In contrast, the estimations of upperclassmen to locations associated with positive and negative affect were not significantly different. These results support Anooshian and Siegels (1985) hypothesis, suggesting that affect initially influences memory for distance information but that this influence disappears with increased experience in the environment.

Lateral eye movements and the recall of spatial information in a familiar, large-scale environment

The relationship between cerebral asymmetry and memory for locations in a familial large-scale environment was examined. Subjects were classified as showing a preference for right or left hemisphere processing on the basis of the direction of their lateral eye movements. Knowledge of the locations of 10 landmarks in a familial large-scale space was assessed. No differences were found between right and left movers. It was concluded that memory for the location of landmarks in a familiar large-scale space is processed equally effectively by those who prefer to process information with the right or left hemisphere.

Time and Distance in Spatial Cognition Development

In two experiments 17- (mean age=17;10), II- (mean age=11;7), 9- (mean age=9;7), and 7-year-olds (mean age = 7;7) walked along a straight line between two locations in a large-scale environment. They were then asked to estimate: (a) the distance from the beginning of the walk to the occurrence of a critical event that had occurred along the walk, and (b) the time taken to traverse various parts of the walk. In experiment 1 each half of the walked distance was traversed in varying amounts of time, with the critical event occurring halfway between the two locations. In experiment 2 the time taken to traverse each part of the walk was held constant but the distance to the occurrence of the critical event was varied. The results indicated that only younger childrens estimates of the distance traversed in an environment may be influenced by the time taken to traverse that distance.

Spatial knowledge of ambulatory and wheelchair-confined nursing home residents

The spatial knowledge of ambulatory (Mean Age=80.5) and wheelchair-confined (Mean Age=76.2) nursing home residents was assessed. Subjects were asked to locate the position of salient nursing home landmarks on a schematic of the nursing home. The results suggested no difference in the spatial knowledge of ambulatory and wheelchair-confined residents. Age and frequency of encountering landmarks were related to accuracy while time of residency was unrelated to accuracy.