Poster #22 - Mental Rotation and Perspective Taking Abilities as Predictors of Route Reversal in Children

• In Event: Poster Session 09

Abstract

Introduction: Perspective-taking abilities are the extent to which an individual can take on an imagined point of view. Mental rotation abilities involve rotating objects in one’s head, without physical manipulation. These two kinds of spatial abilities are thought to represent different constructs and be related to some facets of wayfinding performance. Wayfinding refers to one's ability to navigate themselves through an environment. Previous research suggests that adults’ perspective-taking and mental rotation abilities can predict wayfinding performance in tasks that involve egocentric transformations. Some findings also indicate that perspective-taking accounts for significantly more variance in wayfinding performance than mental rotation abilities do. However, how mental rotation and perspective taking influence children’s wayfinding is relatively less studied. The goal of this study is to examine how perspective taking and mental rotation play a role in wayfinding in young children.

Methods: A sample of 156 children between the ages of four and nine years old (M = 6.81, SD = 1.81) participated. Due to the impact of COVID, some participants completed the task online and others completed it in-person. We used adaptations of Piaget and Inhelder (1956) and Newcombe and Huttenlocker’s (1992) tasks to measure perspective-taking, as well as Shephard and Meltzer’s (1971) task to measure mental rotation. Participants also completed the Raven’s Progressive Matrices test, which is a measure of nonverbal ability. They also completed a virtual route learning task containing two forward trials and one reversal trial. Each trial contained eleven decision-making points.

Results: After partialling out chronological and nonverbal ability, perspective-taking and mental rotation were significantly correlated. The route reversal measure of the route learning task was significantly correlated with perspective-taking and mental rotation. Further, regression analyses indicated that perspective-taking and mental rotation predicted route reversal even after accounting for chronological and mental age. However, mental rotation and perspective taking did not predict any other measures of the route learning task.

Discussion: This finding suggests that navigating a route backwards may require unique egocentric and allocentric transformation abilities. Other aspects of route learning and landmark learning are more dependent on general cognitive ability associated with age.

Authors

• Daria Lasc, Montclair State University
  Presenting Author

• Arielle Hershkovich, Montclair State University

• Sonia Conde, Montclair State University

• Sarah Shah, Montclair State University

• Samantha Salernitano

• Tori Buckman

• Aerin Holzli

• Alexander Dean Bracken, Montclair State University

• Gabriella Torresano, Montclair State University

• Nima Patel

• Yingying Yang, Montclair State University