Language, space, and the development of cognitive flexibility in humans: the case of two spatial memory tasks

Hermer-Vazquez, Linda; Moffet, Anne; Munkholm, Paul

doi:10.1016/s0010-0277(00)00120-7

Cited by 278 publications

(247 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…At face value, the development of sensorimotor and verbal spatial abilities seems to be a case of discontinuous developmentsen sorimotor spatial abilities emerge in infancy and show rapid change thereafter (e.g., Acredolo, 1985;Newcombe, Huttenlocher, & Learmonth, 1999;Piaget, 1954), whereas verbal spatial abilities emerge much later, reaching profi ciency by 5 to 7 years of age (e.g., Craton, Elicker, Plumert, & Pick, 1990;Hermer-Vazquez, Spelke, & Katsnelson, 1999;Plumert, Ewert, & Spear, 1995;Plumert & Nichols-Whitehead, 1996). Consistent with this discontinuous view, Hermer-Vazquez, Moffet, and Munkholm (2001) showed that 5-to 7-year-old children encode spatial relations in new ways once they become profi cient at using spatial language. In particular, spatial language helps children combine geometric and nongeometric, featural information following a disorientation procedure that disrupts children's ability to use dead-reckoning to fi nd a hidden object.…”

Section: Developmental Changes In Spatial Memorymentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Indeed, on the basis of previous studies showing that verbal responses remain stable during short-term delays (e.g., Bridgeman et al, 1997;Brungart et al, 2000) and that 7-year-olds are proficient at spatial language (Hermer-Vazquez et al, 2001), we expected participants to be relatively accurate in this task. It is also possible, however, that participants will show geometric bi ases on the choice task.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We selected 7-year-olds because previous research has shown that 7 years is the youngest age at which children begin to subdivide geometric fi gures along single spatial dimensions (Sandberg et al, 1996). It is important to note that this age is also within the range examined by Hermer-Vazquez et al (2001). If geometric biases generalize to verbal recognition tasks, it suggests that the processes that produce the bias-processes formalized in spatial recall models-might be general as well.…”

Section: Overview Of the Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Toward a formal theory of flexible spatial behavior: Geometric category biases generalize across pointing and verbal response types.

Spencer¹,

Simmering²,

Schutte³

2006

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Three experiments tested whether geometric biases-biases away from perceived reference axesreported in spatial recall tasks with pointing responses generalized to a recognition task that required a verbal response. Seven-year-olds and adults remembered the location of a dot within a rectangle and then either reproduced its location or verbally selected a matching choice dot from a set of colored options. Results demonstrated that geometric biases generalized to verbal responses; however, the spatial span of the choice set influenced performance as well. These data suggest that the same spatial memory process gives rise to both response types in this task. Simulations of a dynamic field model buttress this claim. More generally, these results challenge accounts that posit separate spatial systems for motor and verbal responses.

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Section: Developmental Changes In Spatial Memorymentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Overview Of the Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Toward a formal theory of flexible spatial behavior: Geometric category biases generalize across pointing and verbal response types.

Spencer¹,

Simmering²,

Schutte³

2006

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Here we want to add an additional core cognitive ability: the ability to represent ordered relations. In addition, and based on previous arguments ( [10,11],e.g., [12,13]), it is hypothesized here that acquired symbolic representations, i.e., language, provides a medium, in which information from these separated core domainspecific systems (i.e., quantity and ordinality) can be combined. Accordingly, new representations that depend on language or acquired symbols are expected to include concepts related to old core or innate components (such as quantity and ordinal information), but which involve also new linguistic combinations (such as the direction of writing).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Processing Ordinality and Quantity: The Case of Developmental Dyscalculia

Rubinsten¹

2011

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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In contrast to quantity processing, up to date, the nature of ordinality has received little attention from researchers despite the fact that both quantity and ordinality are embodied in numerical information. Here we ask if there are two separate core systems that lie at the foundations of numerical cognition: (1) the traditionally and well accepted numerical magnitude system but also (2) core system for representing ordinal information. We report two novel experiments of ordinal processing that explored the relation between ordinal and numerical information processing in typically developing adults and adults with developmental dyscalculia (DD). Participants made ''ordered'' or ''non-ordered'' judgments about 3 groups of dots (non-symbolic numerical stimuli; in Experiment 1) and 3 numbers (symbolic task: Experiment 2). In contrast to previous findings and arguments about quantity deficit in DD participants, when quantity and ordinality are dissociated (as in the current tasks), DD participants exhibited a normal ratio effect in the non-symbolic ordinal task. They did not show, however, the ordinality effect. Ordinality effect in DD appeared only when area and density were randomized, but only in the descending direction. In the symbolic task, the ordinality effect was modulated by ratio and direction in both groups. These findings suggest that there might be two separate cognitive representations of ordinal and quantity information and that linguistic knowledge may facilitate estimation of ordinal information.Citation: Rubinsten O, Sury D (2011) Processing Ordinality and Quantity: The Case of Developmental Dyscalculia. PLoS ONE 6(9): e24079.

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“…Humans, like other species, readily use geometric information to guide their navigation after they are disoriented (2, 6), but their proficient and flexible landmark use does not emerge until age 5 under many circumstances, and its emergence correlates with the productive mastery of the phrases "left of X" and "right of X" (2,(17)(18)(19). Further, adults' landmark use after disorientation is impaired when they engage in a language repetition task in a small, enclosed environment (1,20).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence from an emerging sign language reveals that language supports spatial cognition

Pyers

Shusterman

Senghas

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

154

104

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Although spatial language and spatial cognition covary over development and across languages, determining the causal direction of this relationship presents a challenge. Here we show that mature human spatial cognition depends on the acquisition of specific aspects of spatial language. We tested two cohorts of deaf signers who acquired an emerging sign language in Nicaragua at the same age but during different time periods: the first cohort of signers acquired the language in its infancy, and 10 y later the second cohort of signers acquired the language in a more complex form. We found that the second-cohort signers, now in their 20s, used more consistent spatial language than the first-cohort signers, now in their 30s. Correspondingly, they outperformed the first cohort in spatially guided searches, both when they were disoriented and when an array was rotated. Consistent linguistic marking of left-right relations correlated with search performance under disorientation, whereas consistent marking of ground information correlated with search in rotated arrays. Human spatial cognition therefore is modulated by the acquisition of a rich language.spatial language | language and thought | Nicaraguan Sign Language

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Language, space, and the development of cognitive flexibility in humans: the case of two spatial memory tasks

Cited by 278 publications

References 45 publications

Toward a formal theory of flexible spatial behavior: Geometric category biases generalize across pointing and verbal response types.

Toward a formal theory of flexible spatial behavior: Geometric category biases generalize across pointing and verbal response types.

Processing Ordinality and Quantity: The Case of Developmental Dyscalculia

Evidence from an emerging sign language reveals that language supports spatial cognition

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