Playfully learning visual perspective taking skills with sifteo cubes

Abstract

In this paper we describe the design, development and testing of two computer games using Sifteo Cubes that help children to train their visual perspective taking (VPT) skills, i.e. the ability to see the world from another person's perspective. The challenge was to design an enjoyable and usable game that takes into account the huge variability in the perspective taking skills within the target group (preschoolers at the age of five, and older children with learning disabilities). Sifteo Cubes can be considered as digital or intelligent manipulatives that are often used in instruction. We advocate that these type tangible objects can help children performing VPT related tasks since they allow for actions in the real world that aid their thinking. Pre-test and post-test results revealed a short term learning effect on VPT skills after playing the two games.

Impact of an Empathy Training Program on Children’s Perspective-Taking Abilities

“…In other words, the implementation of the program significantly increased the perspective-taking performances of the treatment group when compared to the nonintervention group. Thus, this study extended the findings of previous studies indicating that perspective-taking abilities can be improved by an appropriate intervention program from early years (e.g., Aguero, 2013; Cigala, Mori, & Fangareggi, 2015; Geurts, Vanden-Abeele, Van-Keer, & Isenborghs, 2014; Grazzani & Ornaghi, 2011; Grizenko et al., 2000; Heagle & Rehfeldt, 2006; Khatchadourian, 2010; Laible & Song, 2006; Melot & Angeard, 2003; Ornaghi et al., 2011; Ping, 2005; Taş, 2017; Tenenbaum et al., 2008; Yagmur-Aras & Aslan, 2018). The findings of this study demonstrated that the activities in the program were effective in improvement of children’s perspective-taking abilities.…”

Envisioning tangibles and display-rich interfaces for co-located and distributed genomics collaborations

“…Especially with the resources of academic contexts, a direct ad-hoc de novo creation of the full hardware and software ecosystem is likely to be challenging and fraught. Our team realized this, and sought to position existing software environments like Galaxy [23,25,27] -an open source environments for genomic analyses targeted toward non-programmers -and platforms like Sifteo and PixelSense [22,52]. But we also noted a relatively wide functional and API gap between Galaxy and our needs.…”

Malleability of spatial skills: bridging developmental psychology and toy design for joyful STEAM development

“…First, it is not an ecologically valid training because individuals do not face similar spatial problems in daily life ( Morganti et al, 2009 ). Second, it is not a proper way to apply in a practical setting such as school when the goal is actually to improve those skills since the task is exhausting and time-consuming, especially for children ( Geurts et al, 2014 ; Newcombe, 2017 ).…”

“…The ones that involve psychology theories sometimes lack depth in their conceptual definitions. For instance, Geurts et al (2014) developed digital cubes to improve perspective taking skill however the term was defined in a limited way as detecting right and left of another agent. In another study, Rigo et al (2016) criticized the repetitive cubicle design of building blocks in the market, and proposed an alternative design that consists of various polyhedrons.…”