Think Spatially With Game Engine

Spatial cognition is a perceptual-motor function that pertains to the comprehension and processing of two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. The impairment of any sensory system can have adverse effects on cognitive functioning. The objective of this study is to examine spatial cognition in adults with hearing impairments. There were a total of 61 individuals in this study: thirty-six with hearing loss and 25 with normal hearing. The Spatial Orientation Test (SOT), the Mental Rotation test (MR), and the Money's Road Map Test (RMT) were administered to assess participants' spatial learning-orientation, mental imagery-rotation, and spatial navigation abilities. A high number of errors in RMT, high angle difference in SOT and a low score in MR suggest poor spatial abilities. Participants with hearing loss had a greater number of RMT errors and SOT angle difference, but lower MR scores than those with normal hearing (P < .001). Hearing impairment negatively impacted all 3 spatial cognitive assessments. Hearing loss was associated with a 6.9 increase in the number of RMT errors (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 4.8, 9), a 23.6 increase in the SOT angle difference (95% CI: 16, 31.2), and an 8.5 decrease in the MR score (95% CI: -10.8, -6.2). The study found that individuals with hearing loss exhibited lower performance in various cognitive tasks related to spatial orientation, navigation, spatial learning, mental imagery, and rotation abilities when compared to an age and sex matched control group. In future study, it is imperative to place greater emphasis on hearing loss as a potential detrimental factor in the prediction of spatial cognition impairment.

Spatial thinking skills, which encompass the ability to mentally perceive, manipulate, and find meaning in spatial information, are essential to student success across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, including meteorology. Atmospheric data are inherently spatial, with meteorology coursework requiring students to comprehend, interpret, and predict meteorological data across spatial scales. Spatial skills are known to improve over time in response to instruction, but the rate and nature of that progression in meteorology students as they move through the curriculum have yet to be characterized. In this study, the Spatial Thinking Abilities Test (STAT) was used to quantify spatial thinking skills in undergraduate students in 10 courses required for the meteorology major at a single institution. The STAT was administered twice a semester over a three-semester period at the start and end of each course. Gains in spatial reasoning skills were typically modest for a single semester, though overall levels of spatial skills were sensitive to declared major; meteorology and STEM majors scored significantly higher than nonmeteorology and non-STEM majors. Additionally, meteorology majors regularly exhibited improved performance on questions evaluating the skill of disembedding, which is particularly important for interpreting meteorological maps. Even so, disembedding was the weakest spatial thinking skill for all cohorts of meteorology majors. Longitudinal analysis of meteorology majors revealed that novice students progressed the least in their spatial skills, while students in the middle of curriculum exhibited the strongest gains, likely tied to an increased number of required meteorology courses and their specific content.

Today, individuals need a solid understanding of how earth as a system works in order to understand and develop solutions for science-based issues affecting societies on a global scale such as natural disasters, global warming or COVID-19 pandemic. Humans also deliberate space investigations, such as interplanetary travels and life in space. Therefore, it is necessary to develop new skills to meet the requirements of the current world order overcome this kind of issues through science and geography education. Spatial and systems thinking skills are two of 21st century skills in teaching and learning science-related topics. The study purposes to examine current Turkish primary science curriculum regarding these skills. Document analysis method of qualitative research design was implemented in the study. Emergent qualitative analysis methods of content analysis and open coding were used. It is sought to analyze the research literature on geography education in order to delineate competences necessary for understanding societal problems related to earth science and astronomy-based physics units considering Turkish primary science curriculum framework. The findings of the study showed that the competences spatial and systems thinking skills should be more integral part of science curricula. Especially for spatial thinking skills, educators and policy makers should reconsider the learning objectives in primary science curriculum framework. In conclusion, the results indicated that spatial and systems thinking skills were partially acquired in the curricula. Some units should be clarified and enhanced depend on spatial thinking abilities, systems thinking abilities or both of them.

Fostering students' spatial thinking skills holds great promise for improving Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Recent efforts have focused on the development of classroom interventions to build students' spatial skills, yet these interventions will be implemented by teachers, and their beliefs and perceptions about spatial thinking influence the effectiveness of such interventions. However, our understanding of elementary school teachers' beliefs and perceptions around spatial thinking and STEM is in its infancy. Thus, we created novel measures to survey elementary teachers' anxiety in solving spatial problems, beliefs in the importance of spatial thinking skills for students' academic success, and self‐efficacy in cultivating students' spatial skills during science instruction. All measures exhibited high internal consistency and showed that elementary teachers experience low anxiety when solving spatial problems and feel strongly that their skills can improve with practice. Teachers were able to identify educational problems that rely on spatial problem‐solving and believed that spatial skills are more important for older compared to younger students. Despite reporting high efficacy in their general teaching and science teaching, teachers reported significantly lower efficacy in their capacities to cultivate students' spatial skills during science instruction. Results were fairly consistent across teacher characteristics (e.g., years of experience and teaching role as generalist or specialist) with the exception that only years of teaching science was related to teachers' efficacy in cultivating students' spatial thinking skills during science instruction. Results are discussed within the broader context of teacher beliefs, self‐efficacy, and implications for professional development research.

A typical classroom exercise in hydrogeology is to develop a conceptual model of a contaminated site, identify groundwater flow direction(s), and predict the location and mass of a contaminant plume. This requires knowledge of key hydrogeological concepts and is highly visuospatial in nature. Among multiple discrete spatial thinking skills identified by cognitive science, the combination of visual penetrative ability and working in multiple frames of reference were identified to significantly predict performance on a hydrogeology task and showed that together with hydrogeology knowledge, these spatial thinking skills account for 49% of the variability on task performance. Seventy-two hydrogeology practitioners and students with varying levels of expertise were administered multiple spatial thinking tests and an assessment of hydrogeology knowledge before completing a hydrogeology task that was developed for the study. Using spatial thinking and knowledge test scores as predictor variables, a hierarchical regression analysis was conducted with performance on the hydrogeology task as the outcome variable. The resulting model predicts that at low levels of hydrogeology knowledge, the identified spatial thinking skills account for more than a 25% difference on the hydrogeology task. This study provides empirical evidence that visual penetrative ability and working in multiple frames of reference are important skills in hydrogeology; thus, instructors are encouraged to recognize that underdeveloped spatial thinking skills could present hurdles for students and that targeted spatial thinking training may yield positive results for both weak and strong spatial thinkers.

Social Studies is a middle-school course that unites social-science disciplines and contributes to developing an understanding about the social existence of humans. In that regard, one of the course objectives is to develop the acquisition of spatial thinking skills in students and studies reveal that students&#039; spatial thinking abilities can be tested via several variables. Despite such practice, very few studies have yet examined the Social Studies Curriculum in relation to the inclusion of content and skills around spatial thinking. It is reported that existing studies have simply focused only on the 2005 Social Studies Curriculum and omitted focus on relevant textbooks. Within such a context the aim of the current study is to present the current state of spatial thinking skills in relation to the 2018 Social Studies Curriculum and middle-school textbooks in Turkey. Furthermore, the study aims to analyze the coordination that exists between curriculum and textbooks around spatial thinking. To achieve the aims of the current study, the technique of document analysis technique occurs through examination of Social Studies Curriculum and middle-school textbooks. By the end of this research it was detected that in the 5th grade, the total number of opportunities for students to gain or develop the skills of spatial thinking was 8, and the total number of units in the textbook about spatial thinking was 12; in the 6th grade, the total number of opportunities for students to gain or develop the skills of spatial thinking was 7, and the total number of units in textbook about spatial thinking was 12; and finally, in the 7th grade, the total number of opportunities for students to gain or develop the skills of spatial thinking was 3, and the total number of units in textbook about spatial thinking was 5. Based on these results it can be argued that in Turkey there is not a full coordination or alignment between the 2018 Social Studies curriculum and relevant textbooks about spatial thinking.

Performance in everyday spatial orientation tasks (e.g., map reading and navigation) has been considered functionally separate from performance on more abstract object-based spatial abilities (e.g., mental rotation and visualization). However, few studies have examined the link between spatial orientation and object-based spatial skills, and even fewer have done so including a wide range of spatial tests. To examine this issue and more generally to test the structure of spatial ability, we used a novel gamified battery to assess six tests of spatial orientation in a virtual environment and examined their association with ten object-based spatial tests, as well as their links to general cognitive ability (g). We further estimated the role of genetic and environmental factors in underlying variation and covariation in these spatial tests. Participants (N = 2660; aged 19–22) were part of the Twins Early Development Study. The six tests of spatial orientation clustered into a single ‘Navigation’ factor that was 64% heritable. Examining the structure of spatial ability across all 16 tests, three, substantially correlated, factors emerged: Navigation, Object Manipulation, and Visualization. These, in turn, loaded strongly onto a general factor of Spatial Ability, which was highly heritable (84%). A large portion (45%) of this high heritability was independent of g. The results point towards the existence of a common genetic network that supports all spatial abilities.

Astronauts often face orientation challenges while on orbit, which can lead to operator errors in demanding spatial tasks. In this study, we investigated the impact of long-duration spaceflight on the neural processes supporting astronauts' spatial orientation skills. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we collected data from 16 astronauts six months before and two weeks after their International Space Station (ISS) missions while performing a spatial orientation task that requires generating a mental representation of one's surroundings. During this task, astronauts exhibited a general reduction in neural activity evoked from spatial-processing brain regions after spaceflight. The neural activity evoked in the precuneus was most saliently reduced following spaceflight, along with less powerful effects observed in the angular gyrus and retrosplenial regions of the brain. Importantly, the reduction in precuneus activity we identified was not accounted for by changes in behavioral performance or changes in grey matter concentration. These findings overall show less engagement of explicitly spatial neurological processes at postflight, suggesting astronauts make use of complementary strategies to perform some spatial tasks as an adaptation to spaceflight. These preliminary findings highlight the need for developing countermeasures or procedures that minimize the detrimental effects of spaceflight on spatial cognition, especially in light of planned long-distance future missions.

Advocates for geographic information system (GIS) education contend that learning about GIS promotes students’ spatial thinking. Empirical studies are still needed to elucidate the potential of GIS as an instructional tool to support spatial thinking in other geography courses. Using a non-equivalent control group research design, this study examines the effect of using Web-based GIS in a world geography course on the development of students’ spatial thinking abilities. The findings indicate that Web-based GIS activities implemented in this study significantly enhanced students’ spatial thinking skills.

Chronic gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRHa) is used therapeutically to block activity within the reproductive axis through down-regulation of GnRH receptors within the pituitary gland. GnRH receptors are also expressed in non-reproductive tissues, including areas of the brain such as the hippocampus and amygdala. The impact of long-term GnRHa-treatment on hippocampus-dependent cognitive functions, such as spatial orientation, learning and memory, is not well studied, particularly when treatment encompasses a critical window of development such as puberty. The current study used an ovine model to assess spatial maze performance and memory of rams that were untreated (Controls), had both GnRH and testosterone signaling blocked (GnRHa-treated), or specifically had GnRH signaling blocked (GnRHa-treated with testosterone replacement) during the peripubertal period (8, 27 and 41 weeks of age). The results demonstrate that emotional reactivity during spatial tasks was compromised by the blockade of gonadal steroid signaling, as seen by the restorative effects of testosterone replacement, while traverse times remained unchanged during assessment of spatial orientation and learning. The blockade of GnRH signaling alone was associated with impaired retention of long-term spatial memory and this effect was not restored with the replacement of testosterone signaling. These results indicate that GnRH signaling is involved in the retention and recollection of spatial information, potentially via alterations to spatial reference memory, and that therapeutic medical treatments using chronic GnRHa may have effects on this aspect of cognitive function.

The technical skills of using geographical information systems (GIS) are often taught in different higher education disciplines apart from geocapabilities or geographic disciplinary expertise. Theorised to include capabilities such as spatial thinking, geographical imagination and structured ways to explore places, the concept of geocapabilities has been developed from educator perspectives but student perspectives have yet to be empirically examined. Drawing upon recommendations that students can better acquire geocapabilities through research and authentic problem‐solving, this study examines how 27 higher education students' perceptions of geocapabilities evolved as they learnt technical skills of web mapping through investigating real‐world issues with ArcGIS StoryMaps. Content analyses of students' pre‐ and post‐class reflections suggest that students' perceptions aligned with existing theorisations of geocapabilties in areas such as spatial thinking and geographical imagination. However, students also perceived that geographers need curiosity, interest, enthusiasm, and love for geography, and generic skills for working and living in the world that are not geography‐related. Through making story maps with GIS, students' perceptions of geocapabilities shifted significantly in the areas of geographical practice and application, geographical imagination and interdisciplinarity. The implications of these findings for higher education teaching of GIS and how it informs the theorisation of geocapabilities are discussed. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic Walkington et al. conceptualized geocapabilities from educator perspectives, characterizing it by geographical imagination, ethical subject‐hood, integrative thinking about society and environment, spatial thinking, and structured exploration of place. This has not been investigated empirically from students' perspectives. There is preponderant evidence that the use of geographical information systems (GIS) such as ArcGIS Online and other geospatial technologies can improve students' spatial thinking skills and subject knowledge but how it may develop other geocapabilities have not been examined. What this paper adds There were shifts in undergraduates' conceptions of geocapabilities as they learnt ArcGIS StoryMaps by researching and producing story maps about real‐world issues through flipped classrooms. Like Walkington et al., students conceived geocapabilities to include spatial thinking and geographical imagination but they perceived the other geocapabilities as interdisciplinarity and geographical practice and application. Students also perceived geographers as needing curiosity, interest, enthusiasm and love for geography, and generic capabilities to manoeuvre different tools and skills for working, ways of thinking and ways of working. Implications for practice and/or policy Students' and educators' view could be synthesized and better defined to create a more comprehensive and inclusive framework of geocapabilties. Students can better develop insights about different geocapabilities when they learn GIS technologies through researching real‐world issues. GIS teachers can use flipped classrooms to synthesize teaching and learning about GIS and teaching and learning with GIS.

Spatial thinking in geography learning is very important to explain phenomena, find meaning, answers, and solutions about shape, size, orientation, location, direction, objects in certain spaces on the earth's surface. Therefore, geography students must be able to solve problems in their environment through spatial thinking. Study for Learning Community is considered one of the right approach to solve the problem. The research was conducted at the Department of Geography, FIS UNP in the January-June 2018 semester. The subjects of the study were geography students registered in 2016. The data collected through observation by 6 observers. Learning scenarios follow the steps of Lesson Study; Plan, Do and See. The data were analyzed by using data reduction, display and data verification techniques. The result of study show that students' spatial thinking skills based on Study for Learning Community can solve the problem of geography learning, both in asking, answering, discussing, and expressing opinions. Learning is more directed, fun, and collaborating between students, model lecturer, and observers.

North in the head: spatial reference frame and map orientation

Acute glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), its major metabolite, impaired spatial orientation, navigation, learning and/or memory in female rats

Spatial orientation is the effectiveness with which one is able to assess the mutual location of objects relative to a point of reference or a system of coordinates. Traditionally, this ability has been evaluated through field navigation tests, which do not take into account the prevailing influence of free online maps and virtual walks on a person’s interpretation of space. In this context, this study presents a Web-GIS tool designed and developed to examine spatial orientation skills in the context of the used map type. The tool, named Geo-Survey, enables combination of survey questions with customized maps, providing users with a set of possible answer types. Moreover, using the unique concept of predefined answers, the tool attempts to automate the process of analysing research results. The tools’ performance is evaluated via assessing the spatial orientation skills of a group of young adults.