Spatial visualization ability or visual-spatial ability is the

ability Abilities are powers an agent has to perform various actions. They include common abilities, like walking, and rare abilities, like performing a double backflip. Abilities are intelligent powers: they are guided by the person's intention and exec ...

to mentally manipulate

2-dimensional In mathematics, a plane is a Euclidean ( flat), two-dimensional surface that extends indefinitely. A plane is the two-dimensional analogue of a point (zero dimensions), a line (one dimension) and three-dimensional space. Planes can arise as ...

and

3-dimensional Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informal ...

figures. It is typically measured with simple

cognitive test Cognitive tests are assessments of the cognitive capabilities of humans and other animals. Tests administered to humans include various forms of IQ tests; those administered to animals include the mirror test (a test of visual self-awareness) and t ...

s and is predictive of user performance with some kinds of user interfaces.

Measurement

The cognitive tests used to measure spatial visualization ability including

mental rotation Mental rotation is the ability to rotate mental representations of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects as it is related to the visual representation of such rotation within the human mind. There is a relationship between areas of the br ...

tasks like the Mental Rotations Test or mental cutting tasks like the Mental Cutting Test; and

cognitive tests Cognitive tests are assessments of the cognitive capabilities of humans and other animals. Tests administered to humans include various forms of IQ tests; those administered to animals include the mirror test (a test of visual self-awareness) and ...

like the VZ-1 (Form Board), VZ-2 (Paper Folding), and VZ-3 (Surface Development) tests from the Kit of Factor-Reference cognitive tests produced by

Educational Testing Service Educational Testing Service (ETS), founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization. It is headquartered in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, but has a Princeton address. ETS develops var ...

. Though the descriptions of spatial visualization and mental rotation sound similar, mental rotation is a particular task that can be accomplished using spatial visualization. The Minnesota Paper Form Board Test involves giving participants a shape and a set of smaller shapes which they are then instructed to determine which combination of small shapes will fill the larger shape completely without overlapping. The Paper Folding test involves showing participants a sequence of folds in a piece of paper, through which a set of holes is then punched. The participants must choose which of a set of unfolded papers with holes corresponds to the one they have just seen. The Surface Development test involves giving participants a flat shape with numbered sides and a three-dimensional shape with lettered sides and asking the participants to indicate which numbered side corresponds to which lettered side.

History

The construct of spatial visualization ability was first identified as separate from general intelligence in the 20th Century, and its implications for computer system design were identified in the 1980s. In 1987,

Kim Vicente Kim Vicente is an inactive professor of Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. He was previously a researcher, teacher, and author in the field of human factors. He is best known for his two ...

and colleagues ran a battery of cognitive tests on a set of participants and then determined which cognitive abilities correlated with performance on a computerized information search task. They found that the only significant predictors of performance were

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...

and spatial visualization ability, and that those with high spatial visualization ability were twice as fast to perform the task as those with lower levels of spatial visualization ability.

Age differences

Older adults tend to perform worse on measures of spatial visualization ability than younger adults, and this effect seems to occur even among people who use spatial visualization frequently on the job, such as

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s and

surveyors Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

(though they still perform better on the measures than others of the same age). It is, however, possible that the types of spatial visualization used by architects are not measured accurately by the tests.

Gender differences

According to certain studies, men on average have one standard deviation higher spatial intelligence quotient than women. This domain is one of the few where clear sex differences in cognition appear. Researchers at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

say that differences between men and women on some tasks that require spatial skills are largely eliminated after both groups play a video game for only a few hours. Although

Herman Witkin Herman A. Witkin (2 August 1916 – 8 July 1979) was an American psychologist who pioneered the development of cognitive theories, especially as they pertained to learning. While many cognitive psychologists diagnosed learning disabilities with que ...

had claimed women are more "visually dependent" than men, this has recently been disputed. The gender difference in spatial ability was found to be attributed to morphological differences between male and female brains. The parietal lobe is a part of the brain that is recognized to be involved in spatial ability, especially in 2d- and 3d mental rotation. Researchers at the University of Iowa found that the thicker grey matter in the

parietal lobe The parietal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The parietal lobe is positioned above the temporal lobe and behind the frontal lobe and central sulcus. The parietal lobe integrates sensory informa ...

of females led to a disadvantage in mental rotations, and that the larger surface areas of the

of males led to an advantage in mental rotations. The results found by the researches support the notion that gender differences in spatial abilities arose during human evolution such that both sexes cognitively and neurologically developed to behave adaptively. However, the effect of socialization and environment on the difference in spatial ability is still open for debate. Other studies suggest gender differences in spatial thinking may be explained by a

stereotype threat Stereotype threat is a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. It is theorized to be a contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in acad ...

effect. The fear of fulfilling stereotypes negatively affects the performance which results in a

self-fulfilling prophecy A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's or group of persons' belief or expectation that said prediction would come true. This suggests that people's beliefs influence their actions. ...

References

Inline citations

General references

* * * * * * {{cite journal , last1=Zhang , first1=H. , last2=Salvendy , first2=G. , year=2001 , title=The implications of visualization ability and structure preview design for web information search tasks , journal= International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction , volume=13 , issue=1 , pages=75–95 , doi=10.1207/S15327590IJHC1301_5 , citeseerx=10.1.1.150.8722 , s2cid=1576458 Visual thinking Aptitude Spatial cognition