Preschool Embedded Figures Test Performance of Young Children: Age and Gender Differences

Busch, John; Watson, J. Allen; Brinkley, Vickie M.; Howard, Janice R.; Nelson, Carole S.

doi:10.2466/pms.1993.77.2.491

“…This contrasted with our hypothesis that static skills (perceiving and encoding static images) may be a prerequisite for dynamic skills. Therefore, while static skills (e.g., disembedding) may show earlier development than dynamic skills (e.g., mental rotation) in early childhood, between 3 and 6 years (Busch et al, 1993;Witkin et al, 1971), there is no evidence from our study that this developmental dissociation continues into middle childhood. Alternatively, the static and dynamic tasks that were included in our study may not have been sensitive enough to highlight subtle developmental differences beyond 6 years.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 57%

The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood

Hodgkiss

¹

,

Gilligan-Lee

²

,

Thomas

³

et al. 2021

British J of Dev Psycho

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The multidimensional structure of spatial ability remains a debated issue. However, the developmental trajectories of spatial skills have yet to be investigated as a source of evidence within this debate. We tested the intrinsic versus extrinsic and static versus dynamic dimensions of the Uttal et al. (2013, Psychol. Bull., 139, 352) typology in relation to spatial development. Participants (N = 184) aged 6-11 completed spatial tasks chosen to measure these spatial dimensions. The results indicated that the developmental trajectories of intrinsic versus extrinsic skills differed significantly. Intrinsic skills improved more between 6 and 8 years, and 7 and 8 years, than extrinsic skills. Extrinsic skills increased more between 8 and 10 years than intrinsic skills. The trajectories of static versus dynamic skills did not differ significantly. The findings support the intrinsic versus extrinsic, but not the static versus dynamic dimension, of the Uttal et al. (2013, Psychol. Bull., 139, 352) typology. Statement of contributionWhat is already known on this subject?The dimensional structure of spatial ability is a debated issue.The Uttal et al. (2013) model proposes that spatial thinking is comprised of two dimensions.There is a scarcity of developmental findings assessing the validity of these dimensions. What does this study add?The developmental trajectories of intrinsic versus extrinsic skills differ significantly. The developmental trajectories of static versus dynamic skills do not differ significantly. Spatial skill developmental trajectories support the intrinsic versus extrinsic dimension only.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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“…For instance, females generally perform better in emotional memory (Canli et al, 2002;Seidlitz and Diener, 1998), social sensitivity (Baron- , emotion recognition (Geary, 1998;Hall, 1984;McClure, 2000), and verbal fluency (Hyde and Linn, 1988;Kimura, 1999b). The tasks favoring males include the mental rotation test (Christova et al, 2008;Hahn et al, 2010;Richardson, 1994), spatial navigation (Cherney et al, 2008;Richardson, 1994;RizkJackson et al, 2006), mathematics (Hyde and Linn, 2006;Hyde and Mertz, 2009), embedded figures test (Busch et al, 1993), engineering and physical problems (Lawson et al, 2004). Further, female newborns show stronger interest to look at the face, whereas males tend to look at the mechanical object (Alexander et al, 2009;Connellan et al, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Sex-linked white matter microstructure of the social and analytic brain

Chou¹,

Cheng

²

,

Chen³

et al. 2011

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“…The Children's Embedded Figures Task (CEFT) measures intrinsic-static spatial thinking and requires individuals to identify a shape that is embedded in a more complicated image (Ekstrom et al, 1976;Witkin et al, 1971;;Okamoto et al, 2015). There is evidence that children successfully complete preschool versions of the CEFT by 3 years, and performance continues to improve on the main version of the CEFT between 3 and 5 years and also until 10 years (Busch et al, 1993;Witkin et al, 1971).…”

Section: Intrinsic Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood

Hodgkiss¹,

Gilligan-Lee²,

Thomas³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The multidimensional structure of spatial ability remains a debated issue. However, the developmental trajectories of spatial skills have yet to be investigated as a source of evidence within this debate. We tested the intrinsic vs. extrinsic and static vs. dynamic dimensions of the Uttal et al. (2013) typology in relation to spatial development. Participants (N = 184) aged 6-11 completed spatial tasks chosen to measure these spatial dimensions. The results indicated that the developmental trajectories of intrinsic vs extrinsic skills differed significantly. Intrinsic skills improved more between 6 and 8 years, and 7 and 8 years, than extrinsic skills. Extrinsic skills increased more between 8 and 10 years than intrinsic skills. The trajectories of static vs. dynamic skills did not differ significantly. The findings support the intrinsic vs. extrinsic, but not the static vs. dynamic dimension, of the Uttal et al. (2013) typology.

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Preschool Embedded Figures Test Performance of Young Children: Age and Gender Differences

Cited by 8 publications

References 10 publications

The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood

The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood

Sex-linked white matter microstructure of the social and analytic brain

The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood

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