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    The use of discrimination scaling tasks: a novel perspective on the development of spatial scaling in children

    Gilligan, K. and Hodgkiss, A. and Thomas, Michael S.C. and Farran, E. (2018) The use of discrimination scaling tasks: a novel perspective on the development of spatial scaling in children. Cognitive Development 47 , pp. 133-145. ISSN 0885-2014.

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    Abstract

    Spatial scaling is the ability to transform distance information between shapes of differing sizes. Research on the developmental trajectories of spatial scaling beyond the pre-school years has been limited by a lack of suitable scaling measures for older children. Here we developed an age-appropriate discrimination scaling task, and demonstrated that children (N = 386) achieve performance gains in spatial scaling skills between 5 and 8-years-of-age, after which no significant improvements were found. Furthermore, the results support the use of relative distance strategies for task completion. These findings contrast to localisation paradigms, where performance reaches a plateau by age 6 and mental transformation strategies are used for scaling. The finding that scaling skills continue to develop until 8 years highlight the potential of scaling interventions in the early primary school years. Such interventions may infer direct benefits on spatial thinking and indirect advantages for science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) achievement.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Spatial Scaling, Development, Discrimination scaling task, Relative scaling strategies
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Psychological Sciences
    Research Centres and Institutes: Educational Neuroscience, Centre for
    Depositing User: Michael Thomas
    Date Deposited: 23 Jul 2018 14:32
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:43
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/23120

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