Acquisition and Transfer of Spatial Rotation and Assembly Skills: Two Speed-Accuracy Studies

Abstract

Two studies of the effects of practice on the acquisition and transfer of spatial skills are reported. Both used the methodology of the speed-accuracy study to generate performance curves for each subject in each condition. Interpretation of the parameters of models fitted to these data was guided by McClelland's (1979) cascade model. In the first study, subjects practiced either rotating or assembling polygons. Later, they were administered a transfer rotation or assembly task that presented either practiced or nonpracticed stimuli. In the second study, subjects practiced assembling forms for three sessions and were later posttested on the same transfer task used in Study 1. Following McClelland (1979), differences in asymptotes, curvatures, and intercepts of speed-accuracy curves between conditions were interpreted as reflecting changes in stimulus familiarity, changes in a slow (or rate limiting) process, and changes in a fast (or task-specific) process, respectively. Implications of the research for training and assessment of spatial abilities are discussed.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson

J. R.

(1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bethell-Fox

C. E.

Shepard

R. N.

(1988). Mental rotation: Effects of stimulus complexity, familiarity, and individual differences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 12–23.

Dosher

B. A.

(1984). Degree of learning and retrieval speed: Study time and multiple exposures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10, 541–575.

Lohman

D. F.

(1988). Spatial abilities as traits, processes, and knowledge. In Sternberg

(Ed.), Advances in the psychology of human intelligence (Vol. 4, pp. 181–248). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Lohman

D. F.

(1989). Estimating individual differences in information processing using speed-accuracy models. In Kanfer

Ackerman

Cudeck

(Eds.), The Minnesota symposium on learning and individual differences: Abilities, motivation, and methodology (pp. 119–163). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Lohman

D. F.

Nichols

P. D.

(1990). Training spatial abilities: Effects of practice on rotation and synthesis tasks. Learning and Individual Differences, 2, 67–93.

McClelland

J. L.

(1979). On the time relations of mental processes: An examination of systems of processes in cascade. Psychological Review, 86, 287–330.

Pellegrino

J. C.

(1985, April). Information processing and intellectual ability. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans.

Wickelgren

W. A.

(1977). Speed-accuracy tradeoff and information processing dynamics. Acta Psychologica, 41, 67–85.