Correlation of motor skill, mental rotation, and working memory in 3- to 6-year-old children

Lehmann, Jennifer; Quaiser-Pohl, Claudia; Jansen, Petra

doi:10.1080/17405629.2014.888995

Cited by 67 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Our findings, along numerous studies where no sex differences in children's spatial skills were found (e.g., Caldwell & Hall, 1970;Estes, 1998;Frick et al, 2009;Jahoda, 1979;Jansen & Heil, 2010;Kaess, 1971;Kaplan & Weisberg, 1987;Kruger & Krist, 2009;Kosslyn et al, 1990;Lachance & Mazzocco, 2006;Lehmann, et a., 2014;Platt & Cohen, 1981;Verdine et al, 2017), suggest the male advantage in mental rotation skills is not consistent in childhood. These results highlight the complexity of the development of spatial ability and emphasize the need to continue examining the factors that influence the development of spatial skills, including when and how sex differences in spatial thinking develop.…”

Section: Aim 1: Sex Differences In Mental Rotation Skillssupporting

confidence: 54%

The Development of Early Spatial Thinking

Abad¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

I dedicate my dissertation to my family: my parents (María Rosa and Eduardo Abad), grandparents (María and José Sevilla & Chela and Ernesto Parrella), and soon-to-be husband (Pablo Casco). Everything I accomplish is guided by your love and support. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation could not have been completed without the support of many wonderful people. First of all, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Shannon Pruden, for sharing her passion for spatial research and guiding me throughout the last six years. I also want to thank my dissertation committee members who made this dissertation possible. Dr. Stefany Coxe for providing endless statistical help and for teaching me to love statistics, even after many failed analyses! Dr. Asia Eaton for sharing her knowledge on survey design, providing career advice, and for her contagious positivity. Dr. Barbara King for offering a new perspective and insightful feedback. I express my appreciation for all the research assistants who contributed in data collection, with a special thanks to Daniela Alvarez for her dedication and hard work over the years. A huge thank you to the friends I met in graduate school, Rosalie Odean, Jessica Saunders, Iris Broce, and Alina Nazareth; I cannot imagine a better group of people to accompany me through this journey. A special thanks to my fiancé for the many excel tables, infinite patience, and love. Finally, I thank my family for their continued love and support and for being my biggest cheerleaders through every accomplishment, no matter how big or small.

show abstract

Section: Aim 1: Sex Differences In Mental Rotation Skillssupporting

confidence: 54%

The Development of Early Spatial Thinking

Abad¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Indeed, Roebers et al (2013) found that after accounting for executive functions (inhibition, cognitive flexibility, verbal WM), fine-motor skills no longer predicted children’s school achievement. Similarly, Lehmann et al (2014) showed that after controlling for WM, balance skill was no longer related to children’s mental rotation performance. Thus, these studies point to a major contribution of executive functions to the motor-cognition link, which is why we included measures of children’s inhibitory control, verbal, and visuo-spatial WM.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Matter of Balance: Motor Control is Related to Children’s Spatial and Proportional Reasoning Skills

Frick

Möhring

2016

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent research has shown close links between spatial and mathematical thinking and between spatial abilities and motor skills. However, longitudinal research examining the relations between motor, spatial, and mathematical skills is rare, and the nature of these relations remains unclear. The present study thus investigated the relation between children’s motor control and their spatial and proportional reasoning. We measured 6-year-olds’ spatial scaling (i.e., the ability to reason about different-sized spaces), their mental transformation skills, and their ability to balance on one leg as an index for motor control. One year later (N = 126), we tested the same children’s understanding of proportions. We also assessed several control variables (verbal IQ and socio-economic status) as well as inhibitory control, visuo-spatial and verbal working memory. Stepwise hierarchical regressions showed that, after accounting for effects of control variables, children’s balance skills significantly increased the explained variance in their spatial performance and proportional reasoning. Our results suggest specific relations between balance skills and spatial as well as proportional reasoning skills that cannot be explained by general differences in executive functioning or intelligence.

show abstract

“…However, a majority of studies with infants did not show sex differences [14,15,[20][21][22][23][24]. Moreover, several studies with preschool through primary school children did not report any systematic advantages (e.g., [5,6,9,13,[25][26][27]75,76]), or even found higher error rates in boys [11].Interestingly, a meta-analysis found an increase in effect size as a function of chronological age [70], and more recent research suggests that gender differences emerge around 9 years of age [77,78]. These findings raise the question of what factors may promote sex differences around that age.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of mental transformation abilities

Frick

Möhring

Newcombe

2014

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

129

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mental representation and transformation of spatial information is often examined with mental rotation tasks, which require deciding whether a rotated image is the same or the mirror version of an upright image. Recent research with infants shows early discrimination of objects from mirror image versions. However, even at age 4, many children perform near chance level on more standard measures. Similar age discrepancies can be observed in other domains, including perspective taking, theory of mind, and intuitive physics. These paradoxical results raise the questions of how performance relates to competence, and how to conceptualize developmental change.There may be a common underlying mechanism: the development of the ability to imagine things and mentally transform them in a prospective fashion. Keywords: cognitive development, mental rotation, theory of mind, intuitive physics, perspective taking, simulationRunning head: DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL TRANSFORMATION ABILITIES 3 One of the most impressive skills of the human species is an ability to represent and mentally transform the shapes of objects. People can generate mental images of twodimensional shapes or three-dimensional objects, and can transform them in various ways, e.g., rotating, bending, or folding them [1]. Such flexible representations are vital for making predictions regarding the positions of moving objects, for example to avoid collisions when crossing a street. They also allow for anticipating the effects of actions when manipulating objects or using tools. Furthermore, the ability to perform mental spatial transformations predicts number and math skills [2,3]. Thus, determining the origins and development of mental transformations is a central and topical problem in cognitive science, with translational implications for intervention. However, research on this issue has led to paradoxical findings, with infants showing remarkable abilities but young children failing on seemingly similar tasks. In the present article we put these contrasting results in context with similar findings in other domains, and suggest an underlying mechanism. Age Discrepancies in Mental TransformationMuch of the previous research on mental transformation has focused on a specific kind of spatial transformation, termed mental rotation (MR), which refers to imagining a rotational movement of an object (or array of objects) in 2-or 3-dimensional space. In a classic MR task [4], participants must decide whether a rotated image is the same as a comparison image, or its mirror image. In developmental research, this paradigm has been adapted for the use with children and even infants, with oddly contrasting results. Studies with Preschoolers and Young ChildrenRunning head: DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL TRANSFORMATION ABILITIES 4 Although Marmor [5,6] found that 4-to 5-year-olds were able to perform MR, there has been controversy about her conclusions [7]. A follow-up study employing the same procedure with different stimuli failed to replicate Marmor's results [8]. Other studie...

show abstract

Correlation of motor skill, mental rotation, and working memory in 3- to 6-year-old children

Cited by 67 publications

References 23 publications

The Development of Early Spatial Thinking

The Development of Early Spatial Thinking

A Matter of Balance: Motor Control is Related to Children’s Spatial and Proportional Reasoning Skills

Development of mental transformation abilities

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About