Spatial Ability Tests and Their Applications

QU Cheng-Ting; YOU Xu-Qun

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2013, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (2) : 463-468.

Spatial Ability Tests and Their Applications

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Abstract

Individual differences of spatial ability has been attracted great attention from researchers in the spatial ability field. Previous reseachers concentrated their efforts on age, gender and strategies used in spatial tasks to explain the individual differences showed in spatial ability tests. There is a trend of transition from 2 D to 3 D in the development of spatial ability tests. As the traditional 2D test of spatial ability, the Mental Rotate Test (MRT) has been revised to explore the individual differences. MRT 0-4 and paired MRT are revised first to control the different risks preference between male and female, and second to find out the effect of different time limitation during tests by two methods. The former use an implicit way, while the latter use an explicit way. MRT A/D are revised to test whether the horizontal MRT is better than the vertical MRT and whether male will do better than female in vertical MRT. From several researches, we have come to the conclusion that gender differences showed in mental rotation tasks is constant and not largely rely on the testing formats. Although the different answering requirements may influence the self-esteem or strategies, the male always have the advantage when doing mental rotation tasks. With virtual reality technology, many spatial tests which are specific to different parts of spatial ability have also been devised for adults. D*star and SODT-R are two newly developed and widely used spatial orientation ability tests in spatial ability researches. They were used to probe the strategy preference. The results have been showed that people prefer to maintain the same strategy when tasks were changed from 2D to 3D and they will never switch their original strategies until there is some obvious disadvantage of using them. Compared with MRT, VWM and VPT are two 3D virtual spatial tests. They both need participants to combine rotation with orientation to complete the tasks. The results showed that the performance was hampered by age, that is to say, the more old the participant is, the lower score he/she will get. This age difference is universal among MRT, VWM and VPT. While, the gender difference is much more evident in 2D MRT than in 3D VPT. Studies also have indicated that MRT is related to the education level of participant, while 3D tests are related to the familiarity of the human-computer interface. In addition, some tests with specific purpose to study the development of spatial ability of children have come into existence. The map understanding test for children and picture rotation test are two popular tests using to explore the development of spatial ability. In accordance with the above reviews, further studies should try to define a complete and explicit theory frame both for children and for adults, lay more emphasize on behaviour study and physiological mechanism, clarify the relationship among all above tests and focus on the problem of strategies difference among or within individual.

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spatial ability / mental rotation tests / spatial ability tests / individual differences

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Spatial Ability Tests and Their Applications[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2013, 36(2): 463-468

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