A Quick Assessment of Visuospatial Abilities in Adolescents Using the Design Organization Test (DOT)

The relationship between object-based spatial ability and virtual navigation performance

Spatial navigation is a multi-faceted behaviour drawing on many different aspects of cognition. Visuospatial abilities, such as mental rotation and visuospatial working memory, in particular, may be key factors. A range of tests have been developed to assess visuospatial processing and memory, but how such tests relate to navigation ability remains unclear. This understanding is important to advance tests of navigation for disease monitoring in various disorders (e.g., Alzheimer's disease) where spatial impairment is an early symptom. Here, we report the use of an established mobile gaming app, Sea Hero Quest (SHQ), as a measure of navigation ability in a sample of young, predominantly female university students (N = 78; 20; female = 74.3%; mean age = 20.33 years). We used three separate tests of navigation embedded in SHQ: wayfinding, path integration and spatial memory in a radial arm maze. In the same participants, we also collected measures of mental rotation (Mental Rotation Test), visuospatial processing (Design Organization Test) and visuospatial working memory (Digital Corsi). We found few strong correlations across our measures. Being good at wayfinding in a virtual navigation test does not mean an individual will also be good at path integration, have a superior memory in a radial arm maze, or rate themself as having a strong sense of direction. However, we observed that participants who were good in the wayfinding task of SHQ tended to perform well on the three visuospatial tasks examined here, and to also use a landmark strategy in the radial maze task. These findings help clarify the associations between different abilities involved in spatial navigation.

Vividness of Visual Imagery and Personality Impact Motor-Imagery Brain Computer Interfaces

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are communication bridges between a human brain and external world, enabling humans to interact with their environment without muscle intervention. Their functionality, therefore, depends on both the BCI system and the cognitive capacities of the user. Motor-imagery BCIs (MI-BCI) rely on the users' mental imagination of body movements. However, not all users have the ability to sufficiently modulate their brain activity for control of a MI-BCI; a problem known as BCI illiteracy or inefficiency. The underlying mechanism of this phenomenon and the cause of such difference among users is yet not fully understood. In this study, we investigated the impact of several cognitive and psychological measures on MI-BCI performance. Fifty-five novice BCI-users participated in a left- versus right-hand motor imagery task. In addition to their BCI classification error rate and demographics, psychological measures including personality factors, affinity for technology, and motivation during the experiment, as well as cognitive measures including visuospatial memory and spatial ability and Vividness of Visual Imagery were collected. Factors that were found to have a significant impact on MI-BCI performance were Vividness of Visual Imagery, and the personality factors of orderliness and autonomy. These findings shed light on individual traits that lead to difficulty in BCI operation and hence can help with early prediction of inefficiency among users to optimize training for them.

Developmental changes in visual search are determined by changing visuospatial abilities and task repetition: A longitudinal study in adolescents

Using a longitudinal study design, a group of 94 adolescents participated in a visual search task and a visuospatial ability task yearly for four consecutive years. We analyzed the association between changes in visuospatial ability and changes in visual search performance and behavior and estimated additional effects of age and task repetition. Visuospatial ability was measured with the Design Organization Test (DOT). Search performance was analyzed in terms of reaction time and response accuracy. Search behavior was analyzed in terms of the number of fixations per trial, the saccade amplitude, and the distribution of fixations over different types of elements. We found that both the increase in age and the yearly repetition of the DOT had a positive effect on visuospatial ability. We show that the acceleration of visual search during childhood can be explained by the increase in visuospatial abilities with age during adolescence. With the yearly task repetition, visual search became faster and more accurate, while fewer fixations were made with larger saccade amplitudes. The combination of increasing visuospatial ability and task repetition makes visual search more effective and might increase the performance of many daily tasks during adolescence.

Performance on tasks of visuospatial memory and ability: A cross-sectional study in 330 adolescents aged 11 to 20

Cognitive functions mature at different points in time between birth and adulthood. Of these functions, visuospatial skills, such as spatial memory and part-to-whole organization, have often been tested in children and adults but have been less frequently evaluated during adolescence. We studied visuospatial memory and ability during this critical developmental period, as well as the correlation between these abilities, in a large group of 330 participants (aged 11 to 20 years, 55% male). To assess visuospatial memory, the participants were asked to memorize and reproduce sequences of random locations within a grid using a computer. Visuospatial ability was tested using a variation of the Design Organization Test (DOT). In this paper-and-pencil test, the participants had one minute to reproduce as many visual patterns as possible using a numerical code. On the memory task, compared with younger participants, older participants correctly reproduced more locations overall and longer sequences of locations, made fewer mistakes and needed less time to reproduce the sequences. In the visuospatial ability task, the number of correctly reproduced patterns increased with age. We show that both visuospatial memory and ability improve significantly throughout adolescence and that performance on both tasks is significantly correlated.