The Interface of Learning and Spatial-Numerical Skills

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目的中心目标是确定环境的空间结构如何影响学习，以及这个过程如何与学习者的发展状态相互作用，以及传入信息的性质。更广泛的长期目标是为认知能力、教育水平和文化适应程度各不相同的年龄组勾勒出最有益的日常学习环境空间结构。该项目探讨了在空间结构化或非结构化的方式处理数学和非数学信息的发展中的连续性或不连续性领域。因此，这些研究有助于国家卫生研究院的使命，追求知识的行为的生命系统，以及NICHD数学和科学认知学习计划使命，鼓励基础研究的正常发展的认知和学习，特别是在数学或空间的背景下。本科生研究助理在这个项目的每一个方面的参与，旨在鼓励早期的兴趣，基础研究，并促进指导，在广泛的先进发展心理学方法，尽管学院的地位作为一个非研究生学位授予机构。因此，这套离散的研究项目适合于区域计划，该计划面向为大量未来科学家提供本科学位的机构，但没有得到NIH的大力支持。提出了三套主要的研究。一组研究着眼于看护者和儿童之间的二元互动，记录看护者的空间结构的性质和程度，以及这种结构对儿童随后对任务材料的记忆的影响。第二组研究明确操纵传入信息的空间结构，以及这种结构对学习的影响，使用适合婴儿，学龄前儿童和成人的游戏样范式。每个小组都将看到以结构化或非结构化方式标记的空间位置，目的是学习这些标签空间映射来推断隐藏玩具的位置（对于婴儿和儿童），或者在一次游戏后回忆这些信息（成人）。第三组也是最后一组研究利用了一种独特的交互式触摸屏游戏，旨在测试空间信息的结构-以及所呈现的信息类型-如何影响初始学习的效率和参与者随后对这些信息的记忆。对于所有的研究，我们的目标是区分数学，有序和非有序信息的空间结构化输入的过程中的相对贡献。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The central goal of this project is to determine how the spatial structure of the environment impacts learning, and how this process interacts with the developmental state of the learner, as well as the nature of the incoming information. The broader long-term objective is to outline the maximally-beneficial spatial structure of everyday learning situations, for age groups that vary with respect to cognitive ability and level of education and enculturation. The project explores areas of continuity or discontinuity in the development of processing mathematical and non-mathematical information, in a spatially structured or unstructured manner. Thus, these studies contribute to the NIH mission to pursue knowledge about the behavior of living systems, as well as the NICHD Mathematics and Science Cognition Learning program mission to encourage basic research on the normal development of cognition and learning, especially in a mathematical or spatial context. The proposed participation of undergraduate research assistants in every aspect of this project aims to encourage early interest in basic research, and to foster mentoring in a wide array of advanced developmental psychology methods despite the college's status as a non-graduate degree granting institution. As such, this set of discrete research projects is suitable for the AREA program, which is geared towards institutions which provide undergraduate degrees for a significant number of future scientists, but have not been significantly supported by NIH. Three main sets of studies are proposed. One set of studies looks at dyadic interactions between caregivers and children, documenting the nature and extent of spatial structuring by the caregiver, and the impact of this structuring on the child's subsequent memory for the task materials. A second set of studies explicitly manipulates the spatial structure of incoming information, and the effect of this structure on learning, using game-like paradigms adapted for infants, preschoolers, and adults. Each group will see spatial locations labeled in either a structured or unstructured fashion, with the goal of learning these label-space mappings to infer the location of a hidden toy (for infants and children), or recalling this information after a dela (adults). A third and final set of studies utilizes a unique interactive touch-screen game, designed to test how the structure of spatial information - and the type of information presented - influences both the efficiency of initial learning and participants' subsequent memory for this information. For all studies, we aim to differentiate the relative contributions of mathematical, ordinal, and non-ordinal information to this process of spatially structuring input.