Visuospatial Abilities of Scientists and Students With and Without Dyslexia

• In Event: 44.048 - Using Neuroscience Methods to Study Learning: Focus on the Process, Not Just the Outcomes

Abstract

Dyslexia is an often-inherited neurological condition that impairs abilities for reading, and has been associated with visuospatial advantages for the holistic analysis of images. As a consequence of selection, practice, or both, such advantageous capabilities are expected to be enhanced among those in scientific professions, where these skills are often used. Here we examine the visuospatial ability of experts and novices with and without dyslexia, comparing 30 astrophysicists with 74 high school students in their response to a professionally relevant astrophysical task related to the detection of black holes, focusing on eccentricity-dependent effects in the task (Figure 1).

As expected, the experts generally outperformed the novices. However, while the performance of novices deteriorates with increasing visual angle, the experts improve. Notably, this contrast between expert and novice was especially pronounced in scientists with reading impairment. Such effects of dyslexia were not evident in the novices, suggesting that the enhanced peripheral sensitivity among experts emerged as a result of strategy or selection. Eye tracking was subsequently used to investigate visual strategies in 34 college students with and without dyslexia, and here it was found that those with dyslexia used strategies that were less successful.

Examining threshold task response as a function of eccentricity we observe that whereas in the novices thresholds increase (worsen) as the location of the stimulus peak changes from 4° to 12° (beta=0.016, se=0.007, p=0.029), this dependence on eccentricity is relatively flat among the non-dyslexic experts (p=0.981), as shown by a significant interaction effect of eccentricity expertise (beta=-0.032, se=0.009, p=0.001). In other words, while performance in novices deteriorates as stimulus eccentricity increases, in experts this decrease in performance as a function of eccentricity is less pronounced. And more interestingly, among the dyslexic experts the pattern of thresholds shows a slope that decreases as the eccentricity span increases (beta=-0.013, se=0.007, p=0.070), indicating enhanced sensitivity to widely spaced stimuli. In other words, while performance degrades with increasing eccentricity among novices with or without dyslexia, and experts without dyslexia, the performance among experts with dyslexia improves with increasing angle.

Taken together, these findings suggest that scientists gain peripheral proficiency through use of practiced strategies, and that this is especially beneficial in those with dyslexia.

Our research shows that the gap between experts and novices in STEM-relevant visuospatial performance is especially severe for students with dyslexia, but that with expertise this gap may be closed. Such differences, exaggerated in dyslexia, are likely the consequence of less effective oculomotor strategies used by the novices in performing the task. This is important because students with dyslexia are at increased risk for poor academic outcomes and often suffer from low self-esteem that serves to compound their difficulties.

Authors

• Matthew H. Schneps, University of Massachusetts - Boston

• Marc Pomplun, University of Massachusetts - Boston

• L. Todd Rose, Harvard University

• Chen Chen, Harvard University

• Gerhard Sonnert, Harvard University

• Amanda S. Heffner-Wong, Harvard University

• Jennifer M. Thomson, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Linda Hecker, Michigan State University

• Manju Banerjee, University of Connecticut

• Lincoln Greenhill, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics