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The historic pathway of spatial intelligence is paved mainly in the 20th century where it can be seen to have developed in three to four main phases. The first of these involved pioneering work during the thirties by the likes of Stephenson, Kohs and Alexander. Earlier than this following the translation into English of the Binet-Simon scales of intelligence there were efforts to measure mechanical or practical ability. These efforts paralleled the disquiet among some psychologists and researchers that perhaps academic success involved more than the ability to read and write. After World War 1 efforts were made to readdress the bias in favour of verbal abilities by Dearborn, Stockbridge, Trabue, Thorndike and Haggerty in their publications of what were known as Examination Beta tests administered by the U.S. Army when screening. These involved testing the subjects block counting, line tracing and visual memory.
Throughout these developments there was still an insistence by a hardcore, including Terman that non-language tests did not measure intelligence as they defined it. Fresh questions arouse about the relationship of verbal to non-verbal tests and of the latter to the nature of intelligence. Pintner, Patterson 1917 along with Drever & Collins 1928 insisted that there was more than one aspect of intelligence and more than one way of measuring it. In England during the thirties through research Brown, Stephenson and El Koussy all contributed to the development of defining spatial intelligence and consequently to developing methods of testing it. El Koussy in particular found evidence for the existence of a factor ‘K’ which represented for him ‘the ability to obtain and the faculty to utilise visual spatial imagery’. Else where Smith 1937 and Kelley validated his assertions, while Kelley took things a step further with his notions that ‘the manipulation of spatial relations’ was another distinct factor of Spatial ability. Thurstones’ work at this time argued that human intelligence was composed of several independent factors of specific abilities and not just one general ability factor. Following testing he attempted identification of specific ability factors, one of which he labelled ‘space’ as ‘requiring a faculty in holding a mental image and mentally twisting, turning or rotating it to a different position and then matching this transformed image with a suggested solution’ – thus establishing one of the initial credible and remembered definitions of spatial ability.
Many developments were to follow in what was identified by Mc Farlane as phase 2 1938 –1961 which he insists is notable for two activities: ‘ the undertaking of several large scale investigations to specify differences between subdivision of spatial factor; and for the generation of many new paper –and – pencil spatial tests’.
Following up the work of Thurstone were Goodman 1943, Whittenborn 1945 and Slater 1940. Their efforts to refine the newly identified spatial factor through further sub-division were paralleled by American efforts which themselves were urged on by the need for accurate testing of those expected to fly aircraft in World War 2. The resultant tests were interpreted as evidence of the existence of sub-factors of spatial intelligence and more interestingly the data was used to establish the notion of ‘visualisation’, as been a separate ability. On these early theories regarding a distinction between ‘spatial relations’ and ‘ visualisation’ it can be said that the former was considered the ‘ability to determine the relationships between different spatially-arranged stimuli and responses, and the comprehension of the arrangement of elements within a visual stimulus pattern’. The latter of the two ‘visualisation’ was considered by the same source Guilford & Lacey 1947 as requiring ‘the ability to imagine the rotation of depicted objects, the folding and unfolding of flat patterns, and the relative changes of positions of objects in space’
Thurstones research led him to arrive at devising a spatial factor 1 and a spatial factor 2, the former dealing with static and the latter with dynamic imagery. French in 1951 decided following his review of studies thus far that there were at least three sub-factors, which he labelled spatial factor, orientation factor and visualisation factor. Later investigations by Burt 1949, El Koussy 1955 and Renshaw 1950 further assert the existence of sub-factors of spatial intelligence. Zimmerman 1954 through his visualisation of manoeuvres test concluded that the visualisation of relationships was more intellectually demanding then tasks of spatial orientation. In 1957 Michael et al identified three sub- factors; a combination of spatial relations and orientation factors, a visualisation factor and a kinaesthetic imagery factor.
As confusion arouse over the multitude of theories on the make up of spatial ability and the inter-relationships, if any of it’s sub-factors the story moved into what Mc Farlane considered to be the third phase of it’s development - 1961 up until the time of publishing of his directory of spatial tests in 1982. In review of this phase I have identified a fluctuation in interest in the fate of spatial intelligence. Also the nature of the interest in spatial ability has shifted its emphasis from defining the nature of the ability to examining the sources of variance in spatial ability. Starting with Werdelin’s tests in 1961 it can be seen that efforts were beginning towards identifying the source of variance in spatial tests. While identifying SF.1 and SF2 as Thurstone had, he completed interesting analysis on sex-related differences in performance on these tests. Age related differences in spatial ability were investigated by Piaget 1967 and Inhelder 1971. The next significant event was the development by Guilford 1971 of a new structure of intelligence. He argued that mental operations performed, content and product were the aspects of intelligence which could be used to understand an activity and thus spatial ability could be tested by what came to be known as CFT tests – Cognitive operations, Figural content and transformational product, e.g. a block rotation test.
Alternative models were proposed by others in the following years and many of these defined spatial ability in terms of combinations of factors. Wattanawaha 1977 argued that to solve a spatial task one must employs mechanisms to deal with four distinct aspects of the problem – one concerning the dimensionality of the problem, a second relating to internalisation i.e. is the imagery static or dynamic, a third concerning the manner of presentation of the question and a fourth dealing with the thinking required to arrive at a solution – D, I, P and T respectively. Lohman in 1979 conducted a complete reanalysis of all available data to conclude that there were three major and several minor spatial factors. Interesting conclusions of his work are that visualisation, one of the major sub-factors was the most difficult and that the minor factors pertained to performance factors such as speed and memory. Guttmans work in the early 80’s relates to that of Wattanawaha’s as she also identifies four content facets thus drawing upon a sequence of criteria to analyse spatial tasks.
The last 15 to 20 years have involved much quiet continuation of what has gone before and investigation has delved deeper and deeper into the nature of spatial ability with ever-new classifications and definitions. This fourth phase is characterised by firstly the technology introduced into the equation and also by several other factors including new innovative studies and the prioritising of aspects of spatial ability. I believe that the arch rivals of pencil and paper and model based systems of testing have evolved into 3D computer based methods which continue to evolve at an alarming rate to incorporate animation and ultimately virtual reality. Preliminary investigations into the implications of such resources and mechanisms of progress in areas of spatial intelligence are most exciting and show these new born developments as having the ability to nurture spatial ability as well as help fathom it’s mysteries.
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