How visuo-spatial mental imagery develops: Image generation and maintenance

Tools

Wimmer, Marina C., Maras, Katie L., Robinson, Elizabeth J., Doherty, Martin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4314-7892 and Pugeault, Nicolas (2015) How visuo-spatial mental imagery develops: Image generation and maintenance. PLoS One, 10 (11). ISSN 1932-6203

[thumbnail of journal.pone.0142566]
Preview
 PDF (journal.pone.0142566) - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Two experiments examined the nature of visuo-spatial mental imagery generation and maintenance in 4-, 6-, 8-, 10-year old children and adults (N = 211). The key questions were how image generation and maintenance develop (Experiment 1) and how accurately chil- dren and adults coordinate mental and visually perceived images (Experiment 2). Experi- ment 1 indicated that basic image generation and maintenance abilities are present at 4 years of age but the precision with which images are generated and maintained improves particularly between 4 and 8 years. In addition to increased precision, Experiment 2 demon- strated that generated and maintained mental images become increasingly similar to visu- ally perceived objects. Altogether, findings suggest that for simple tasks demanding image generation and maintenance, children attain adult-like precision younger than previously reported. This research also sheds new light on the ability to coordinate mental images with visual images in children and adults.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: © 2015 Wimmer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Developmental Science
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 13 Nov 2015 17:01
Last Modified: 22 Oct 2022 00:25
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/55267
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142566

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item