Egocentric versus Allocentric Spatial Ability in Dentistry and Haptic Virtual Reality Training

Abstract

The current study investigates the role of egocentric and allocentric spatial abilities in the field of dentistry. Whereas allocentric ability requires spatial transformation from a stationary point of reference, egocentric spatial ability is tied to the sensory-motor system, and it requires changing one's imagined perspective in space. Experiment 1 investigates the role of different spatial abilities in a tooth preparation exercise. Experiment 2 investigates the interaction of allocentric and egocentric spatial abilities with the effectiveness of haptic virtual reality training. The results show that only egocentric spatial ability was a significant predictor of success in tooth preparation. In addition, an egocentric spatial ability test was the reliable predictor of success in more complex (indirect vision) tasks during haptic virtual reality training. Our results indicate the need for the development of finer measures of the specific spatial skills that might be needed for different dental specializations.

Spatial abilities and technical skills performance in health care: a systematic review

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Spatial Abilities for Architecture: Cross Sectional and Longitudinal Assessment With Novel and Existing Spatial Ability Tests

“…It is known that with expertise, domain specific abilities are more likely than general abilities to develop and distinguish between experts and novices, although both domainspecific and domain-general abilities are relevant to performance (e.g., Hambrick and Meinz, 2011;Vaci et al, 2019). To some extent, this has been shown within the realm of spatial abilities, namely that spatial thinking becomes specialized with expertise in certain STEM domains (Hegarty et al, 2009;Stieff et al, 2012;Uttal and Cohen, 2012;Kozhevnikov et al, 2013;Shipley et al, 2013). For example, expert geologists outperformed chemists on a task simulating the process of inferring spatial properties of rock formation, but not on a standard mental rotation test (Shipley et al, 2013).…”

“…Comparing to SV tests, there are fewer tests of spatial orientation, some examples being The Spatial Orientation Test ( Hegarty and Waller, 2004 ) and the Visualization of Views ( Guay and McDaniels, 1976 ). Tasks that require changes in the imagined (or real) viewing point are also termed egocentric , whereas tasks in which the observing position is constant are allocentric and comprise the majority of SV tests ( Kozhevnikov et al, 2013 ). A typology proposed by Uttal et al (2013a) provides further dimensions for classifying spatial ability tasks.…”

Human-body analogy improves mental rotation performance in people aged 86 to 97 years

“…Transformations of visuospatial images are important spatial abilities that play roles in a wide range of everyday activities, including tool use 2 , navigation 3,4 , social interactions [5][6][7] , and academic and occupational success [8][9][10] . Further, it is well known that mental transformations of visuospatial images are at least partially subserved by sensorimotor processes necessary for corresponding physical transformations [11][12][13][14][15][16] , consistent with embodied cognition theories 17,18 .…”