1. Jessie Bullens prof. dr. Albert Postma http://wayfinding.fss.uu.nl
The processing of categorical and coordinate spatial changes in children
Jessie Bullens
prof. dr. Albert Postma

2. Spatial Relations (Kosslyn, 1987)
Categorical: the position of an object in relation to another object (LH)
Coordinate: the exact metric distance
between (parts of an) object(s) (RH)

3. Imagery Memory Development?
Perception
Imagery
Memory
(Submitted by Postma et al., 2005)
‘Bar-and-Dot’ task
(Hellige & Michimata, 1989)
Image Generation Task (Kosslyn et al., 1995)
Development?

4. Questions Does spatial relation processing develop with age?
What is the developmental pattern of functional lateralization?

5. Method ‘Memory’ Task 120 participants: 6-8 years (7.3; 1.15)

14. Within Between
Sample picture
Categorical change
Coordinate change

15. WITHIN / BETWEEN SAME DIFFERENT CATEGORICAL COORDINATE

16. Signal Detection Theory
Response
Stimulus Same Different
Same HIT MISS
Different FA CR

17. [ 1 - % Hits + % False Alarms]
Sensitivity (Pr):
% Hits – % False Alarms
Bias (Br):
% False Alarms
[ 1 - % Hits + % False Alarms]

18. Results : Sensitivity

19. Results : Bias
No age differences: all groups tended to respond ‘same’ more than ‘different’ (liberal response bias)
Hemisphere effect: LH > RH

20. Results : FA’s

21. Surprisingly, a RH advantage was found for categorical spatial changes: this effect might depend on intrinsic difficulty of the task
LH RH

22. Conclusion
Discrimination sensitivity improves with age (not bias) and is higher in the RH
Lateralization in processing spatial relations might be a relatively late appearing phenomenon

23. Questions?