Transfer from spatial education to verbal reasoning and prediction of transfer from learning-related neural change

Cortes, Robert A.; Peterson, Emily Grossnickle; Kraemer, David J. M.; Kolvoord, Robert A; Uttal, David H.; Dinh, Nhi; Weinberger, Adam B.; Daker, Richard J.; Lyons, Ian M.; Goldman, Daniel I.; Green, Adam E.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abo3555

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…Studies in the real world or using Virtual Reality (VR) show that, in fact, there are very large individual differences in navigation competencies (Ishikawa & Montello, 2006; Weisberg & Newcombe, 2016, 2018; Zanchi, Cuturi, Sandini, & Gori, 2022). In addition, there has been widespread interest in links between individual differences in spatial ability and participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines (e.g., Atit, Uttal, & Stieff, 2020), including individual differences in large‐scale spatial cognition and links to general reasoning (Cortes et al., in press).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Building a Cognitive Science of Human Variation: Individual Differences in Spatial Navigation

Newcombe

Hegarty

Uttal³

2022

Topics in Cognitive Science

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The aim of this issue is to take stock of cognitive science of human variation in the field of spatial navigation, an important domain in which debates have often assumed an invariant human mind. Addressing the challenge of individual differences requires cognitive scientists to change their practices in several ways. First, we need to consider how to design measures and paradigms that have adequate psychometric characteristics. Second, using reliable, efficient, and valid measures, we need to examine how people vary from time to time, both in the short run due to emotions, such as stress or time pressure, and in the longer run, due to training or living in physical environments that require wayfinding skills. Third, we need to study people different from the traditional college participants, including variations in age, gender, education, culture, physical environment, and possible interactions among these variables.

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confidence: 99%

Building a Cognitive Science of Human Variation: Individual Differences in Spatial Navigation

Newcombe

Hegarty

Uttal³

2022

Topics in Cognitive Science

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“…So, what mental ability could the capacity factor correspond to? Grid and OOO are both visuospatial tasks, but visuospatial representations are also important for cognition when stimuli are presented verbally 23 , 24 , as in our FI task. For example, the subjects could translate the verbal instructions to a spatial representation of planned movements.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this task, children were given a verbal instruction of how to move objects on the screen. We hypothesized that spatial WM representations are important also for verbal instructions 23 , 24 . The third task, Math, was an arithmetic task of addition under time pressure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A dual-process model for cognitive training

Ericson

Klingberg

2023

npj Sci. Learn.

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A key goal in cognitive training research is understanding whether cognitive training enhances general cognitive capacity or provides only task-specific improvements. Here, we developed a quantitative model for describing the temporal dynamics of these two processes. We analyzed data from 1300 children enrolled in an 8 week working memory training program that included 5 transfer test sessions. Factor analyses suggested two separate processes: an early task-specific improvement, accounting for 44% of the total increase, and a slower capacity improvement. A hidden Markov model was then applied to individual training data, revealing that the task-specific improvement plateaued on the third day of training on average. Thus, training is not only task specific or transferable but a combination of the two. The models provide methods for quantifying and separating these processes, which is crucial for studying the effects of cognitive training and relating these effects to neural correlates.

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“…In other words, people form internal, spatially arranged "mental models" of relevant information, suggesting a connection between mental modeling ability and spatial cognition (e.g., related pieces of information are close together in space and unrelated pieces of information are far apart). Consistent with this perspective, emerging work indicates that spatial cognition is a malleable neurocognitive resource that supports deductive verbal reasoning (Collins and Gentner, 1987;Johnson-Laird, 2010;Uttal et al, 2013a,b;Cortes et al, 2022). The well-established role of mental modeling as a form of spatial cognition that supports verbal reasoning suggests that, if mental modeling can be trained through explicit spatialization of information, verbal reasoning performance can be enhanced.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Meta-analytic evidence indicates that training on a range of spatial tasks leads to improvement on the trained abilities and may yield transfer to untrained STEM-related tasks (Uttal et al, 2013a). Emerging research has highlighted neural and behavioral changes during verbal reasoning following participation in spatially focused curricula in real-world classroom (Cortes et al, 2022). While encouraging, other spatial training studies have failed to produce lasting transfer (Mix and Cheng, 2012;Xu and LeFevre, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Mental Models Training App: Enhancing verbal reasoning through a cognitive training mobile application

Cortes

Weinberger²,

Green³

2023

Front. Psychol.

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IntroductionReasoning is a complex form of human cognition whose nature has long been debated. While a number of neurocognitive mechanisms for deductive reasoning have been offered, one of the most prominent accounts is Mental Model Theory (MMT). According to MMT, humans are able to manipulate and represent information for reasoning and problem solving by leveraging the brain’s evolved visuospatial resources. Thus, when solving deductive reasoning problems, reasoners build “mental models” of the essential pieces of information conveyed in the premises, with their relations to each other represented spatially—even when the information contained within a reasoning problem is not intrinsically spatial. Crucially, taking a spatially-based approach, such as building mental models, supports higher accuracy on deductive reasoning problems. However, no study has empirically tested whether explicitly training this mental modeling ability leads to improved deductive reasoning performance.MethodTherefore, we designed the Mental Models Training App, a cognitive training mobile application which requires participants to complete increasingly difficult reasoning problems while using an external mental modeling tool. In this preregistered study (https://osf.io/4b7kn), we conducted a between-subjects experiment (N = 301) which compared the Mental Models Training App to 3 distinct control conditions in order to examine which specific components (if any) of the training were causally responsible for improved reasoning performance.ResultsResults demonstrate that, when compared to a passive control condition, the Mental Models Training App led to improvements in adults’ verbal deductive reasoning performance both during and after the training intervention. However, contrary to our preregistered hypotheses, the training-induced improvements were not significantly larger than the effects of the active control conditions—one which included adaptive practice of the reasoning problems, and one which included adaptive practice as well as a spatial alphabetization control task.DiscussionTherefore, while the present results demonstrate the ability of the Mental Models Training App to enhance verbal deductive reasoning, they do not support the hypothesis that directly training participants mental modeling ability yields improved performance beyond the effects of adaptive practice of reasoning. Future research should examine the long-term effects of repeated usage of the Mental Models Training App, as well as transfer effects to other forms of reasoning. Finally, we present the Mental Models Training App as a free mobile application available on the Apple App store (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mental-models-training/id1664939931), in the hope that this translational research may be utilized by the general public to improve their reasoning ability.

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Transfer from spatial education to verbal reasoning and prediction of transfer from learning-related neural change

Cited by 12 publications

References 92 publications

Building a Cognitive Science of Human Variation: Individual Differences in Spatial Navigation

Building a Cognitive Science of Human Variation: Individual Differences in Spatial Navigation

A dual-process model for cognitive training

The Mental Models Training App: Enhancing verbal reasoning through a cognitive training mobile application

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