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Teacher professional vision as a concept is gaining importance in research on teaching, and recently models for studying teacher professional vision and student self-regulated learning (SRL) have been proposed. There are interview and video intervention studies investigating teacher professional vision for SRL, but no real-life classroom research so far. This study investigated the role of student SRL behaviour, as it was reported by students themselves and teachers, in teacher attention distribution as part of teacher professional vision. Ten teachers and their 158 students at high school level in Lithuania took part in the research. The first step of the study resulted in identifying four student SRL-profiles, which differed based on student level of SRL and the extent to which teacher and student assessments coincided: mixed lower-regulated, mixed higher-regulated, systematic lower-regulated, systematic higher-regulated. The profiles demonstrated only a partial overlap in teacher and student judgement of student SRL. The second step of the study explored whether scores of students' SRL from student and teacher reports were related to teachers' distribution of visual attention in one lesson. The results showed that only one teacher rating scale of student information-seeking behaviour had a slight correlation with teacher attention. The results imply rather bottom-up trends in teacher attention to students in the classroom when it comes to SRL. Besides, the study results highlight the not directly observable nature of SRL processes and imply a difficulty for teachers to assess student SRL.

This study explored early childhood education and care (ECEC) teachers' visual gaze and related reflections on pedagogical actions during pedagogical activities in groups of children under three years of age in Finland. The data were collected from play and teacher-guided activities using mobile eye-tracking glasses, the retrospective thinking aloud (RTA) method, and semi-structured interviews. The results showed that even though the teachers were surprised about some aspects of the visual gaze metrics, they reflected on and gave reasons for their visual gazes on children. When observing gaze data from play, teachers explained the high amount of gaze by citing children's particular needs. When observing gaze data from guided activities, teachers reflected on children's unpredictable behavior and noted that the children's need for support in concentration was linked to more gazes by the teacher. The findings showed that both during play and guided activities, children seeking a gaze and the position of children in the classroom influenced the number of teachers' gazes. In the teachers' explanations of their visual gaze and related pedagogical actions, five categories were identified: protection; physical and emotional availability, teaching and learning; facilitation; and initiatives. This explorative study showed that teachers utilize their knowledge concerning children's individuality, development, and learning when they explain their decisions concerning their visual gaze and pedagogical activities with toddlers. The use of mobile eye-tracking technology is relatively new; therefore, its applications to ECEC are pioneering for the development of the field in relation to the practices and research of toddlers' groups and groups with older children in ECEC.

During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning has gained popularity. Video conferencing, such as Zoom, has become the new normal in almost every individual's life. The purpose of this study is to observe the usage and preference of Virtual Background (VB) during video conferencing through a survey, whereas the effect of VB on attention during online meetings is evaluated through an eye tracker experiment. An online survey is conducted to observe the usage and preference of Indonesian users of Zoom in applied VB. Based on the most preferred VB, an eye tracker experiment was conducted to evaluate participants' attention during online learning using the three most preferred VB: office VB, plain background, and thematic VB. Eye tracker parameters, including Percentage of Participants who Fixated (PFF), Total Fixation Duration (TFD), Time to First Fixation (TFF), and Fixation Count (FC), were measured. The survey result showed that 71% of 303 respondents preferred their lecturers to use VB during Zoom meetings, 26% preferred office VB, 25% preferred plain VB, and 20% preferred thematic VB. An experiment that is conducted to evaluate attention during online meetings with three different VBs using an eye tracker shows that attention to lecture in plain VB is the best compared to other VBs, shown by the highest value of TFF and lowest TFD and FC. Implications of the result are discussed.

This study connects to an ongoing discussion about the limits and affordances of simulators as realistic and relevant contexts for professional learning, in this case in the development of visual expertise. Earlier studies of simulator-based maritime pilot training conclude that there are risks associated with so-called negative skills transfer due to a lack of photorealism in simulator environments. The aim of this study is to carefully examine how visual expertise develops in and through training in a simulated environment. Through a practice-based approach to the development of visual expertise, and by using qualitative interaction analysis of video recorded training sessions, the analytical focus is directed towards maritime pilot trainees' talk about imperfections and inconsistencies in the virtual environment during exercises in a high-fidelity bridge simulator. Considering the multi-layered nature of the maritime pilot's visual expertise, findings show that the maritime pilots in training noticed and adapted to the specific methodological and technological challenges when manoeuvring a simulated vessel. During such reflection-in-action, they also commented on and explored the differences between, navigating in a simulator, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, navigating on board a ship. Instead of concluding that there is a risk for negative skills transfer that follows from the differences between the two contexts of navigating, we argue that the challenges introduced by representations encountered when training in a virtual environment may add to the expertise of the trainees and lead to enriched conceptual, methodological, and technical knowledge regarding the specificities of visually demanding and ambiguous navigation situations. In this way, this study contributes to advance our understanding of learning in virtual environments to the frontline of learning research.

This research investigates the influence of color-filtered lighting in relation to biophilic design, specifically within the preschool learning environment where design elements impact early childhood development. Among various architectural design components, research underscores the pivotal role of lighting in affecting children's pleasantness and energy levels. The experiment yielded three key findings: (1) discernible differences in pleasant and energy levels were observed between existing white lights and specific color-filtered lights; (2) varying pleasant and energy levels were noted among different color-filtered lights; (3) a relation was identified between external conditions (confounding variables) and pleasant and energy levels in the context of color-filtered lights. Subsequently, the study delved into the interplay between the effects of color-filtered lighting and natural light, specifically focusing on the Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) level. There is an opportunity to refine and innovate lighting elements of learning environments through the interplay between indirect experience elements of biophilic design, attention restorative theory (ART), and perceived emotional experience. The study offers valuable insights into the relationship between specific lighting conditions and elevated energy and pleasantness levels suggesting a meaningful avenue for further research and practical application in educational settings.

Experimental research on perception and cognition has shown that inherent and manipulated visual features of mathematics problems impact individuals' problem-solving behavior and performance. In a recent study, we manipulated the spacing between symbols in arithmetic expressions to examine its effect on 174 undergraduate students' arithmetic performance but found results that were contradictory to most of the literature (Closser et al., 2023). Here, we applied educational data mining (EDM) methods to that dataset at the problem level to investigate whether inherent features of the 32 experimental problems (i.e., problem composition, problem order) may have caused unintended effects on students' performance. We found that students were consistently faster to correctly simplify expressions with the higher-order operator on the left, rather than right, side of the expression. Furthermore, average response times varied based on the symbol spacing of the current and preceding problems, suggesting that problem sequencing matters. However, including or excluding problem identifiers in analyses changed the interpretation of results, suggesting that the effect of sequencing may be impacted by other, undefined problem-level factors. These results advance cognitive theories on perceptual learning and provide implications for educational researchers: online experiments designed to investigate students' performance on mathematics problems should include a variety of problems, systematically examine the effects of problem order, and consider applying different analytical approaches to detect effects of inherent problem features. Moreover, EDM methods can be a tool to identify nuanced effects on behavior and performance as observed through data from online platforms.

This study provides evidence connecting two aspects of visual-orthographic skills (orthographic awareness and delayed copying) to the common variance shared by Chinese word reading and arithmetic calculation, as well as in identifying positional knowledge of numbers as a potential mediator of these connections in Chinese primary school students (N = 155, 81 boys). Nonverbal Intelligent Quotient (IQ), socioeconomic status (SES), working memory, and attentional control were included as covariates. Path analyses demonstrated that both orthographic awareness and delayed copying significantly explained the covariance of word reading and arithmetic calculation. Furthermore, there is an indirect effect via positional knowledge of numbers as indicated by number line estimation and strategic counting on the relations between orthographic awareness and the common variance shared by word reading and arithmetic calculation. In contrast, delayed copying had a direct effect on the common variance. Results suggest that early visual-orthographic skills may be helpful in the development of both word reading and arithmetic ability among Chinese students.

Visual working memory (VWM) refers to the temporary storage and manipulation of visual information. Although visually different, objects we view and remember can share the same higher-level category information, such as an apple, orange, and banana all being classified as fruit. We study the influence of category information on VWM, focusing on the question of whether stimulus category coherence (i.e., whether all to-be-remembered items belong to the same semantic category) influences VWM performance. This question is addressed in two behavioral experiments using a change-detection paradigm and a rational analysis using an ideal observer based on a Bayesian model. Both experimental participants and the ideal observer often, but not always, performed numerically better on coherent trials (i.e., when all stimuli belonged to the same category). We hypothesize that the influence of category coherence information on VWM may be task-dependent and/or stimulus-dependent. In conditions when category coherence information is highly valuable for task performance, as indicated by the ideal observer, then participants tended to make use of it. However, when the ideal observer suggested this information was not crucial to performance, participants did not. In addition, both participants and the ideal observer showed a bias toward responding "same," and often showed a stronger influence of category coherence on change trials. The consistencies between participant and ideal observer responses suggest participants often behaved as they did because these behaviors are optimal (or approximately so) for maximizing task performance. This may help explain conflicting results reported in the scientific literature.

Given that inhibition interacts with visual temporal processing (VTP), the past evidence regarding the influence of VTP on the Chinese character reading of children with dyslexia may not disclose the whole picture without considering inhibition. Thus, the present study is among the first to investigate VTP and cognitive inhibition as well as their relationships to Chinese character reading. We compared the performances of 62 Chinese-speaking children with dyslexia in primary school (n = 62, M[subscript age] = 11.36 years) on VTP and inhibition tasks to those in a chronological-age-matched group (CA; n = 62, M[subscript age] = 11.57 years) and reading-level-matched group (RL; n = 62, M[subscript age] = 8.98 years). The results revealed that children with dyslexia performed worse than both the CA-matched and RL-matched groups in VTP and inhibition after controlling for age, nonverbal intelligence, and attention. Moreover, the relationship between VTP and Chinese character reading was moderated by inhibition in children with dyslexia. VTP is positively related to Chinese character reading, but this relationship is observed only at higher levels of inhibition. Our results suggest that inhibition plays a potential role in VTP and Chinese character reading, especially for those with dyslexia whose proficiency in inhibition is not as intact as that of typically developing children.

The paradox of documenting history through gruesome visuals depicting the prominence of stories intrigues media researchers. Foundational work on the dual representation theory explains trauma transference to brain functions following disturbing emotional triggers. The analysis suggests an existing link between exposure to disturbing information and trauma. In East Africa, trauma and related psychological effects thrive amid rigid newsroom structures devoid of intervention mechanisms. The scarcity of trauma mitigations is not just an issue in journalism, but in society, as mental health concerns and other deprivations become common. Data from in-depth interviews with journalists reporting trauma in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda indicate a positive correlation between a heightened frequency of exposure to violent visuals and an increased manifestation of trauma. Data also show a dearth in psychosocial support, indicating a need for alternative mitigation strategies.

The aim of this study was to investigate individual differences in mathematical problem-solving among 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 328; n[subscript 3-year-olds] = 115, n[subscript 4-year-olds] = 167, n[subscript 5-year-olds] = 46). First, we examined the extent to which children in this age group were able to solve open and closed non-routine mathematical problems representing a variety of mathematical domains. Second, we investigated the extent to which underlying academic and cognitive skills (i.e., expressive and receptive language, visuospatial, and early numeracy skills) were associated with individual differences in mathematical problem-solving concurrently and longitudinally (i.e., one year later). The results showed that 4- to 5-year-olds were able to solve a variety of non-routine mathematical problems. However, though 3-year-olds were also able to solve a variety of problems, the mathematical problem-solving measure did not meet the reliability criteria, resulting in excluding 3-year-olds from further analyses. Expressive and receptive language, visuospatial, and early numeracy skills were associated with mathematical problem-solving concurrently among 4-year-olds. Among 5-year-olds, only visuospatial and early numeracy skills were associated with mathematical problem-solving. Furthermore, only prior mathematical problem-solving skills and early numeracy skills predicted mathematical problem-solving skills longitudinally. These findings indicate that preschoolers are able to solve open and closed non-routine mathematical problems representing a variety of mathematical domains. Additionally, individual differences may stem not only from differences in mathematical problem-solving skills but also from early numeracy.

3q29 deletion syndrome (3q29del) is associated with neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental phenotypes. We previously reported that graphomotor weakness is present in up to 78% of individuals with 3q29del. We have now explored nuances of the graphomotor phenotype and its association with other comorbidities in this population. Participants were recruited from the online 3q29 registry (3q29deletion.org) for two days of deep phenotyping. 32 individuals with 3q29del (62.5% male) were evaluated with the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI) to assess visual-motor integration. Participants were also evaluated with measures of cognitive ability, executive function, adaptive behavior, and school function. Males with 3q29del performed significantly worse than females on the VMI and Motor Coordination subtest. VMI performance was significantly associated with ADHD diagnosis and cognitive ability. Compared to published data from individuals with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, individuals with 3q29del showed significantly more impairment. The 3q29 deletion is associated with substantial deficits in visual-motor integration, Visual Perception, and Motor Coordination. Our data suggests that 3q29del may qualify as a nonverbal learning disability. Future studies should assess whether individuals with 3q29del would benefit from early interventions, including occupational therapy.

This study examined the relationships between word reading and rapid automatized naming (RAN) for objects and letters in Arabic-speaking children with and without dyslexia to determine potential modulating effects of color on naming by comparing children's performance on color and black-white RAN plates. Participants were 114 Arabic-speaking third graders who were tested for word and pseudoword reading accuracy, word reading fluency, rapid automatic naming, and letter scanning and searching abilities. Comparative analyses showed that while children with dyslexia did not differ from controls on the RAN object color task, they did show slower average naming speeds than the controls on the black-white version of the objects task. Similarly, the children with dyslexia showed slower average naming speeds than controls on both the color and black-white versions of the RAN letters task. In addition, hierarchical regression analyses showed that word reading accuracy, word reading fluency and pseudoword reading were significantly predicted by RAN black-white objects and RAN letters both versions after controlling for Age, IQ and visual search. Furthermore, group predicted the interference in letter RAN but not in object RAN. Findings of the current study have implications for the positive impact of color on object-naming tasks.

Autistic individuals have significant social-communication challenges that commonly persist into adulthood and impact academic, social, and vocational pursuits. More than two decades of research have established video behavior modeling as a successful, cost-effective, and time-efficient intervention tool for autistic children; however, less research has investigated the use of video modeling with autistic adults, and only a handful of studies have assessed its effects in non-vocational community-based settings. This study examines the effects of video modeling on social-communication skills of autistic adults in a U.S. community-based fitness group using a multiple-baseline single-case design with replication across participants. Additional data on visual attention, generalization, and social validity were captured. Results show variable effects across participants and provide valuable information to guide individuals in choosing effective and practical evidence-based practices to support the social-communication success of autistic adults.

We investigated the factors associated with subjective temporal distance of pandemic-related events in a sample of healthcare workers. A total of 257 healthcare workers were asked to recall two COVID-19 pandemic-related events that impacted them the most at the beginning of the pandemic (April--May 2020), and rated event centrality, phenomenological characteristics, subjective temporal distance, and visual perspective (field vs. observer) for each reported event. Results showed a negative relationship between subjective temporal distance and event centrality only for memories remembered from the field perspective (field memories), but not those remembered from the observer perspective (observer memories). Furthermore, event centrality enhanced recollection of sensory and perceptual details, which, in turn, resulted in memories being felt temporally closer to people. However, only field memories, not observer memories, revealed this pattern, showing that recollective experience shaped by visual perspective mediates the relationship between event centrality and subjective temporal distance.

Spatial thinking permeates much of our lives and is an asset when solving problems involving well-structured visual information or imagining solutions in physical or digital space. However, an estimated three million US school children have spatial talents that go unrecognized because of the tools commonly used for identification of academic talent. For decades, educational and psychological research has explored the range of spatial thinking skills that are demanded by many career fields, including science, engineering, and mathematics. Spatial thinking has been found to be particularly important to early mathematical thinking. In this article, we explore what spatial thinking entails, where it is important in the curriculum, and how we can begin to develop spatial literacy and identify spatial talents in our K-12 classrooms.

Spatial memory is important for supporting the successful completion of everyday activities and is a particularly vulnerable domain in late life. Grouping items together in memory, or chunking, can improve spatial memory performance. In memory for desktop scale spaces and well-learned large-scale environments, error patterns suggest that information is chunked in memory. However, the chunking mechanisms involved in learning new large-scale, navigable environments are poorly understood. In five experiments, two of which included young and older adult samples, participants watched movies depicting routes through building-sized environments while attempting to remember the locations of cued objects. We tested memory for the cued objects with virtual pointing, distance estimation, and map drawing tasks after participants viewed each route. Patterns of error failed to show consistent evidence of chunking in spatial memory across all experiments. One possibility is that chunking in spatial memory relies on visual perceptual grouping mechanisms that are not in play during encoding of large-scale spaces encountered through extended route experiences that do not afford concurrent viewing of target locations.

In order to make appropriate educational recommendations, psychologists must understand how cognitive test scores influence specific academic outcomes for students of different ability levels. We used data from the WISC-V and WIAT-III (N = 181) to examine which WISC-V Index scores predicted children's specific and broad academic skills and if cognitive-achievement relations varied by general intelligence. Verbal abilities predicted most academic skills for children of all ability levels, whereas processing speed, working memory, visual processing, and fluid reasoning abilities differentially predicted specific academic skills. Processing speed and working memory demonstrated significant interaction effects with full-scale IQ when predicting youth's essay writing. Findings suggest generalized intelligence may influence the predictive validity of certain cognitive tests, and replication studies in larger samples are encouraged.

Linguistic categories can impact visual perception. For instance, learning that two objects have different names can enhance their discriminability. Previous studies have identified a typical pattern of categorical perception, characterized by faster discrimination of stimuli from different categories, a neural mismatch response during early visual processing (100-200 ms), and effects restricted to the right visual field. However, it remains unclear whether language affects perception online or through long-term changes to mental representations in memory. To address this, we tested the impact of newly learned object categories with and without memory consolidation during sleep. We replicated the canonical pattern of categorical perception for categories that underwent consolidation. Without consolidation, linguistic categories still influenced early visual processing but with distinct neural dynamics. Therefore, we found evidence of both transient and long-term effects of language on perception and conclude that memory consolidation plays a crucial role in shaping how linguistic categories modulate perception.

Can brief training on novel grammatical morphemes influence visual processing of nonlinguistic stimuli? If so, how deep is this effect? Here, an experimental group learned two novel morphemes highlighting the familiar concept of transitivity in sentences; a control group was exposed to the same input but with the novel morphemes used interchangeably. Subsequently, both groups performed two visual oddball tasks with nonlinguistic motion events. In the first (attentional) oddball task, relative to the control group, the experimental group showed decreased attention (P300) to infrequent changes in the morpheme-irrelevant dimension (shape) but not the morpheme-relevant dimension (motion transitivity); in the second (preattentive) oddball task, they showed enhanced preattentive responses (N1/visual mismatch negativity) to infrequent changes in motion transitivity but not shape. Our findings show that increasing attention to preexisting concepts in sentences through brief training on novel grammatical morphemes can influence both attentional and preattentive visual processing.

"Taza" in Spanish refers to cups and mugs in English, whereas glass refers to different glass types in Spanish: "copa" and "vaso." It is still unclear whether such categorical distinctions induce early perceptual differences in speakers of different languages. In this study, for the first time, we report symmetrical effects of terminology on preattentive indices of categorical perception across languages. Native speakers of English or Spanish saw arrays of cups, mugs, "copas," and "vasos" flashed in streams. Visual mismatch negativity, an implicit electrophysiological correlate of perceptual change in the peripheral visual field, was modulated for categorical contrasts marked in the participants' native language but not for objects designated by the same label. Conversely, P3a, an index of attentional orienting, was modulated only for missing contrasts in the participants' native language. Thus, whereas native labels influenced participants' preattentive perceptual encoding of objects, nonverbally encoded dissociations reoriented their attention at a later processing stage.

It can be difficult for some students to learn three-dimensional anatomical structure concepts. While virtual reality (VR) systems have been reported as helpful for learning, there has been scarce research on either VR teaching strategies or the influence of visually induced motion sickness (VIMS) in the context of large anatomy classes (i.e., over 100 students). The study thus aimed to (1) establish a VR anatomy instruction video for a large class; (2) determine how many students experience VIMS when watching a VR anatomy instruction video; (3) evaluate the influence of VIMS on VR anatomy video-based learning; and (4) examine whether a small screen size alleviates VIMS. Laboratory course students viewing a VR anatomy instruction video about the vascular system were invited to participate in the questionnaire survey. Anatomy faculty and staff participated in an experimental trial to determine whether small screen size could alleviate VIMS. The Likert scale survey revealed that students reported the VR strategy as advantageous and appropriate for large classes, but that it cannot replace practical dissection. Of the total participants, 32% reported experiencing VIMS, and 40% of those experiencing VIMS agreed that this could negatively impact their learning through a VR anatomy instruction video. Adjusting the screen size from large to small significantly delayed the onset of VIMS. In conclusion, the VR anatomy instruction video strategy is feasible and helpful for large classes, but educators should consider VIMS when planning their use of this teaching approach.

Temporal seeing is a mode of visual perception that interrupts the spatial bias we bring to visual literacy practices. Although an image only captures one moment in time, there are multiple spatioanalytical tools we can use to consider any image. Spatial literacy, which is the practice of analyzing objects through their properties in space, tends to be the default analytical mode for making sense of imagery. For people to bring a commensurate temporal richness to their articulated visual readings, we first highlight the perspectival richness of time and temporality. We next present five precepts that can guide enriched temporal seeing: contextual histories; relational chronologies; internal rhymicity; desequenced and resequenced narrative; and critique and meaning-making. Finally, we suggest that temporal seeing holds a series of educative possibilities for expanding the interpretive frames and perceptual apparatuses of literacy researchers and practitioners.

Virtual reality (VR) applications are developing rapidly, becoming more and more affordable, and offer various advantages for learning contexts. Dynamic visualizations are generally suitable for depicting continuous processes (e.g., different movement patterns), and particularly dynamic virtual 3D-objects can provide different perspectives on the movements. The present study investigated through a low immersive (desktop "VR", Study 1) and a high immersive virtual environment (immersive VR; Study 2) the effectiveness of different interaction formats to view 3D-objects from different perspectives. Participants controlled either the orientation of the 3D-objects (Study 1, mouse interaction; Study 2, hand interaction via VR controllers) or their viewpoint in relation to the 3D-objects (Study 1, camera position; Study 2, position of participants' own body). Additionally, the moderating influence of learners' visuospatial ability was addressed. Dependent variables were pictorial recognition (easy, medium, difficult), factual knowledge, presence, and motion sickness. Results showed that higher-visuospatial-ability learners outperformed lower-visuospatial-ability learners. In Study 1, higher-visuospatial-ability learners showed higher recognition performance (difficult items) by controlling the camera position, whereas lower-visuospatial-ability learners suffered from this interaction format. In Study 2, higher-visuospatial-ability learners achieved better recognition performance (easy items) by controlling the 3D-models, whereas lower-visuospatial-ability learners tended to profit from moving around the 3D-objects (medium items). The immersive VR yielded more presence and higher motion sickness. This study clearly shows that different interaction formats to view 3D-objects from multiple perspectives in Desktop-VR are not transferable on a one-to-one basis into immersive VR. The results and implications for the design of virtual learning environments are discussed.

It has been reported that visual statistical learning (VSL) is facilitated in skewed distributions. However, it remains unclear whether enhancement of VSL in Zipfian distributions is due to consciousness of the regularities presented at high frequency. This study addressed this issue. We measured participants' subjective confidence in regularities and awareness of regularities during familiarization by combining a previously reported procedure for VSL with a postdecision wagering task and posttest questionnaire. The results demonstrated that Zipfian distribution enhanced not only VSL but also metacognitive sensitivity, particularly for high-frequency regularities, as the effects of consciousness on VSL were limited to high-frequency regularities. Moreover, the results indicated that awareness during familiarization mediated VSL enhancement in the Zipfian distribution. These results suggest that VSL for events with high-frequency regularities plays an important role in the cognition of events with low-frequency regularities via awareness.

The purpose of the study was to determine the association between van Hiele geometric thinking levels and circular achievement exam results for middle school students in 7th grade. The design of the study was a survey method. 157 middle school students were participated into study from three different schools in Kayseri in the spring semester of the 2017-2018 academic year. Van Hiele geometry thinking test which was developed by Usiskin and adapted into Turkish by Duatepe (2000) and a circle achievement test that was developed by the researcher were used to collect the data. Pearson The circle achievement test and van Hiele geometry thinking levels were correlated to find their link. Assumptions were met, hence independent groups t-test and ANOVA were performed. The results revealed that Grade 7. Students van Hiele geometric thinking levels were lower than expected levels. A moderate correlation was found between the circle achievement test and the van Hiele geometric thinking test. The results obtained from the van Hiele geometry thinking test showed statistically significant mean difference across schools 1 and 2. Moreover, there is no statistically significant mean difference across schools at the circle achievement test. Boy and girl middle school students' geometry thinking levels and circle achievement test scores were not statistically significantly different from each other.

More than 50 years ago, Bongard introduced 100 visual concept learning problems as a challenge for artificial vision systems. These problems are now known as Bongard problems. Although they are well known in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, only very little progress has been made toward building systems that can solve a substantial subset of them. In the system presented here, visual features are extracted through image processing and then translated into a symbolic visual vocabulary. We introduce a formal language that allows representing compositional visual concepts based on this vocabulary. Using this language and Bayesian inference, concepts can be induced from the examples that are provided in each problem. We find a reasonable agreement between the concepts with high posterior probability and the solutions formulated by Bongard himself for a subset of 35 problems. While this approach is far from solving Bongard problems like humans, it does considerably better than previous approaches. We discuss the issues we encountered while developing this system and their continuing relevance for understanding visual cognition. For instance, contrary to other concept learning problems, the examples are not random in Bongard problems; instead they are carefully chosen to ensure that the concept can be induced, and we found it helpful to take the resulting pragmatic constraints into account.

Atypical habituation to repetitive information has been commonly reported in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) but it is not yet clear whether similar abnormalities are present in Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1). We employed a cross-syndrome design using a novel eye tracking paradigm to measure habituation in preschoolers with NF1, children with idiopathic ASD and typically developing (TD) children. Eye movements were recorded to examine fixation duration to simultaneously presented repeating and novel stimuli. Children with NF1 showed a bias for longer look durations to repeating stimuli at the expense of novel stimuli, and slower habituation in NF1 was associated with elevated ASD traits. These findings could indicate aberrant modulation of bottom-up attentional networks that interact with the emergence of ASD phenotypes.

Museum learning is beneficial for social inclusion, deepening partnerships between schools and museums, and increasing levels of pupil attainment. While there have been numerous empirical studies on the use of haptics in formal educational settings, few have explored the effect of haptic interaction on learning outcomes in museum learning. This study looks at an interactive 3D artifact simulation using a haptic interface and a non-haptic interface, with one group using 3D hand motions and receiving visual/haptic stimuli, and another group using a mouse and only receiving visual stimuli. Forty individuals majored in arts or social science courses were asked to perform four main interactive tasks about 3D collection. Using a triangulation of assessment scores, investing time, and satisfaction with interactions with the 3D artifact simulation, we explored the efficacy of haptic interaction in improving museum learning. The results showed that in general, the haptic interaction was more helpful in promoting learning performance in relation to 3D collections. However, significant differences only occurred in relation to the volume and material interactive tasks, and not in relation to the contour and color interactive tasks. The Findings reveal that the visual/haptic stimuli provided by haptic interaction in museum learning has a stronger modality effect on human information processing, and the effect of haptic interaction depends on the coupling of interactive tasks and sensorimotor experiences. Further, psychological immersion is more likely to occur when using haptic interaction, and haptically augmented 3D artifacts attract learners' attention, enhancing learner engagement and motivation. Explanations for these results are synthesized from the perceptual symbol, embodied cognition, and immersion theories.

In the search for mechanisms that contribute to dyslexia, the term "attention" has been invoked to explain performance in a variety of tasks, creating confusion since all tasks do, indeed, demand "attention." Many studies lack an experimental manipulation of attention that would be necessary to determine its influence on task performance. Nonetheless, an emerging view is that children with dyslexia have an impairment in the exogenous (automatic/reflexive) orienting of spatial attention. Here we investigated the link between exogenous attention and reading ability by presenting exogenous spatial cues in the multi-letter processing task--a task relevant for reading. The task was gamified and administered online to a large sample of children (N = 187) between 6 and 17 years. Children with dyslexia performed worse overall at rapidly recognizing and reporting strings of letters. However, we found no evidence for a difference in the utilization of exogenous spatial cues, resolving two decades of ambiguity in the field. Previous studies that claimed otherwise may have failed to distinguish attention effects from overall task performance or found spurious group differences in small samples.

Children with dyslexia frequently also struggle with math. However, studies of reading disability (RD) rarely assess math skill, and the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying co-occurring reading and math disability (RD+MD) are not clear. The current study aimed to identify behavioral and neurocognitive factors associated with co-occurring MD among 86 children with RD. Within this sample, 43% had co-occurring RD+MD and 22% demonstrated a possible vulnerability in math, while 35% had no math difficulties (RD-Only). We investigated whether RD-Only and RD+MD students differed behaviorally in their phonological awareness, reading skills, or executive functions, as well as in the brain mechanisms underlying word reading and visuospatial working memory using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The RD+MD group did not differ from RD-Only on behavioral or brain measures of phonological awareness related to speech or print. However, the RD+MD group demonstrated significantly worse working memory and processing speed performance than the RD-Only group. The RD+MD group also exhibited reduced brain activations for visuospatial working memory relative to RD-Only. Exploratory brain-behavior correlations along a broad spectrum of math ability revealed that stronger math skills were associated with greater activation in bilateral visual cortex. These converging neuro-behavioral findings suggest that poor executive functions in general, including differences in visuospatial working memory, are specifically associated with co-occurring MD in the context of RD.

This study was conducted to examine the effect of the Intelligence Games Preschool Program on the math skills of 60-72 month-old children. In the research, a model with pre-test post-test control group, which is one of the quasi-experimental models, was used. A total of 30 children, 15 of them from the experimental group and 15 of the control group, participated in the study. General Information Form and TEMA 3 Mathematics Ability Test were used as data collection tools in the study. In addition to the Preschool Education Program of the Ministry of National Education, the children constituting the experimental group in the study were included in the Intelligence Games Preschool Program prepared by the General Directorate of Lifelong Learning for 10 weeks, every day and 2 hours a week for a total of 100 hours. The control group was not included in this program and continued with the Ministry of National Education Preschool Education Program. Mann Whitney U test was used for comparison of independent measurements and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used for comparison of related measurements in the analysis. Based on the research findings, it was concluded that intelligence games contribute to children's basic mathematical skills such as counting, comparison, addition and extraction process, matching, rhythmic counting, matching objects and numbers, visual perception and concept of part and whole.

This study aims to investigate the effect of the Metacognitive Strategy-Based Geometry Education Program (McGEP) on children's metacognition and executive function skills and the permanence of this effect. The study was designed in a quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest control group with a total of 27 children attending to kindergartens affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Ankara City Center in the 2021-2022 academic year. WM, HTKS, FIST and Train Track Task were used to collect the data. Mann Whitney-U test, Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Friedman test statistics were used to analyze the data. As a result of the study, it was determined that the McGEP had significant effect on children's metacognitive skills of monitoring and control processes and that this effect was permanent. Moreover, it was found that the perseveration and distraction errors exhibited by the children decreased significantly after the implementation of the McGEP. In fact, it was found that there was significant difference in the three sub-tasks of the Train Track task in the sub-domains of Control, Metacognitive Skills, Perseveration and Distraction Errors, and Quality Score in favor of the children in the study group. Accordingly, it was found that the McGEP had significant effect on working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control skills among children's executive function skills and that this effect was permanent. Therefore, it was concluded that the McGEP significantly affected both metacognitive skills and executive function skills of children.

The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the divergent thinking abilities of first-year architecture students who are currently enrolled in a course focused on thinking in architecture. The statistical analysis of student's studio works with Wallach Kogan's divergent thinking pre/post-tests results demonstrated that the post-test score for verbal stimuli fluency was higher than the visual post-test score. In addition, the post-test score for visual flexibility was higher than the verbal post-test score. In originality students got the highest scores in post-tests both in visual and verbal tasks. Besides the correlation analysis indicated a strong correlation between fluency and originality. These results revealed that design training considerably enhances students' capacity to produce original ideas both in visual and verbal thinking. In terms of their ability to create considerably more and qualified ideas on related themes students demonstrate more improvement in their verbal reasoning abilities than their visual reasoning skills. The present study determined that curricular intervention in the first semester training where the instructor emphasized development of divergent thinking skills improved students' both visual and verbal divergent thinking skills, to a greater degree in originality and to a lesser degree in fluency and flexibility in idea generation.

The study aimed to examine effectiveness of a visual perception training program upon an application period of 14 weeks on primary school first graders. Effects of the "Frostig Visual Perception Training Program" were evaluated within demographics of gender, age, parental education level, previous kindergarten attainment and family income. The sample group consisted of first graders between the ages of 5-7 at a public primary school in Bursa, Türkiye. The study as an experimental model was designed based on screening-model sampling and conducted in the 2017-2018 academic year. Upon Pretest application of the visual perception instrument, "Frostig Visual Perception Training Program" was administered to the Treatment group once a week as part of art classes during 14 weeks. Visual perception skills of children were measured before and after training to examine, analyze and evaluate the developmental capacities and scope of children's visual perception. While there was no significant difference between the Treatment and Control groups at the beginning, Post-test results showed a significant difference between cohorts upon training and utilization of the "Frostig Visual Perception Training Program." Results were also compared based on various demographics. It was conclusively supported by the findings that the "Frostig Visual Perception Training Program" contributed to the children's visual perceptive abilities positively. It was also concluded that visual perception development may contribute to children's development to support early literacy-skill development. Therefore, art classes may play a central role especially for preschool and early grade levels.

This study aimed to determine the relationship between the visual literacy levels of children attending preschool education institutions and their rapid automatized naming skills. A total of 160 children, 77 girls, and 83 boys, aged 5-6 years, attending independent kindergartens, took part in the research. The "Personal Information Form," the "Visual Literacy Assessment Tool for Children Aged 5-6 Parent's Form," and the Rapid Automated Naming Test (HOTIT) were used to collect the data. The predictive correlational research design was used in the study; Pearson's correlation coefficient and "multiple regression" analysis were used to determine the predictors of visual literacy skills. It was found that there was a high negative correlation between the skills of the Rapid Automatized Naming Test and the picture sub-dimension and a similarly high negative correlation between the Rapid Automatized Naming Test color skills.

Background: Perceptual motor development is crucial during early childhood and not properly addressing it in physical education (PE) can be detrimental. Aim: To determine the effect of a South African curriculum-aligned PE intervention on the visual-motor integration (VMI), visual perception (VP) and motor coordination (MC) of 6-year-old children. Setting: Quintile 3 schools in Mangaung, Free State Province, South Africa. Methods: Grade 1 children from two quintile 3 schools in Mangaung were recruited. Complete data sets were obtained for 44 participants. A quantitative randomised control trial design was followed. The Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, Sixth Edition (Beery VMI-6), determined participants' VMI, VP and MC during the pre- and post-tests. The "KaziKidz" toolkit was used as intervention during 10 sessions of 40 min each for the experimental group, while the control group continued with the South African PE curriculum. The Fisher's exact and Kruskal--Wallis tests were used for pre- and post-test comparisons, with p < 0.05 indicating statistical significance. Results: The median age of the control (n = 18) and intervention (n = 26) groups was 6.7 and 6.5 years, respectively. Post intervention, the intervention group displayed significantly improved VMI (p = 0.042) and VP (p < 0.001), compared to the control group. No significant differences between the groups were observed for MC. Conclusion: Exposure to PE including perceptual motor aspects significantly improved the VMI and VP of 6-year-old children. Contribution: Results deemed the "KaziKidz" toolkit to be a successful mode of PE delivery to improve the perceptual skills of Grade 1 learners in South Africa.

The purpose of this follow-up study was to determine the specific contribution of phonological processing abilities, including phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN) and verbal short-term memory (VSTM), as well as visual perception (VP), in word reading accuracy. A sample of 62 native Arabic speaking children from Grade 1 participated in study, were subdivided into typical readers (n= 42) and poor readers (n=20). Along with a diagrammatic representations test to assess visual perception, phonological processing tasks included syllable deletion, RAN objects, and pseudo-word repetition, in addition to word and pseudo-word reading tests. Participants were tested in grade 1 using the phonological and VP tasks and one year later in grade 2 using the same tasks in addition to the reading test. The main research hypotheses stipulated that typical and poor readers differ significantly in all the phonological and VP measures. It was also hypothesized that phonological and VP processing abilities contribute independently to the prediction of word reading accuracy for the entire sample. The results showed that the two groups differ significantly in PA and VSTM which were assessed in Grade 1, and in PA and VP assessed in grade 2. More importantly, hierarchical regression analyses showed that among the three phonological processing skills, PA as assessed in both grade 1 and grade 2 was the unique predictor of word reading accuracy after controlling for age and the Raven's matrices for nonverbal abstract reasoning. Visual perception also contributed significantly to the prediction of reading but only when assessed in grade 2. The findings demonstrate the key role of both PA and VP for the early development of word reading accuracy in Arabic.

One model of numeric perception is a density-area mechanism: a process that estimates both density and area of an array, then multiplies them to create an estimate of number. One line of evidence that supports this is the surprising numeric Ebbinghaus illusion: smaller context circles lead to greater perceived number than larger context circles, potentially via larger perceived area. This registered report re-tested this effect with a number of simple but potentially important improvements in the method and analysis. Participants were asked to indicate the number of blue dots in arrays that were surrounded by grey context circles of three different sizes. Both experiments confirmed that larger context circles lead to a proportional increase in perceived number. Experiment 1 (N = 50) did so with denser, more texture-like arrays (50-100 dots filling 35% of the area). Experiment 2 (N = 50) did so with sparser, more scatter-like arrays (10-30 dots filling 5% of the area). These findings confirm the existence of the numeric Ebbinghaus effect. This in turn confirms a specific prediction derived from a density-area mechanism and rules out alternatives that begin by stripping away context to non-verbally count discrete entities. No further significant evidence was found to suggest that this depends on the array being particularly dense or texture-like, nor to suggest that anything moderates the impact of increasing perceived area as a direct proportional effect on increasing perceived number. This further builds the case that this kind of numeric perception relies on a density-area mechanism.

Taking the visual perspective of another individual is an important skill in social communication, and is termed visual perspective-taking (VPT). Individuals with autism spectrum disorder who have deficits in social interaction show relatively lower performance on VPT tasks than individuals who achieve age-appropriate developmental milestones. Thus, researchers have attempted to teach VPT skills and component behaviors to children with autism spectrum disorder. This pilot study evaluated the effects of a technology-based intervention on VPT skills in an adolescent male with autism spectrum disorder and moderate intellectual disabilities using a multiple-probe across behaviors design. Using a training package composed of multi-view videos with feedback, we trained the participant to discriminate whether the experimenter could see an object and to discriminate between right or left based on the experimenter's perspective. The results showed that the percentage of correct responses for each skill increased when the training package was applied. Furthermore, we observed generalization of VPT skills to untrained lab and natural environment settings. We discussed (1) the possibility that training multiple exemplars resulted in broad generalization, (2) the effectiveness of experiencing other people's perspectives when training VPT skills, and (3) the potential and limitations of multi-view videos for clinical application based on the results of the social validity questionnaire.

Perceptual expertise is typically domain-specific and rarely generalises beyond an expert's domain of experience. Forensic feature-comparison examiners outperform the norm in domain-specific visual comparison, but emerging research suggests that they show advantages on other similar tasks outside their domain of expertise. For example, fingerprint examiners not only outperform novices in fingerprint comparison, but also in face comparison. Yet, the extent to which their skills generalise is poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the generalisability of perceptual expertise amongst forensic examiners by comparing their performance to novices and other examiners within and outside their area of expertise. We recruited 85 experts from three forensic disciplines (face, fingerprint, and firearms) and asked them to complete four different visual comparison tasks: faces, fingerprints, firearms, and novel-objects. Examiners displayed domain-specific expertise: they outperformed novices and other examiners within their domain of visual comparison expertise. Yet, some of their skill also generalised: examiners also outperformed novices outside their area of expertise. However, while individual differences in examiners' performance within their domain of experience were associated with their performance in a novel comparison task, they were not related to their performance on tasks outside their expert domain. These results provide key insight into the domain-specific and domain-general contributions of forensic examiners' perceptual expertise. Forensic expertise lends some generalisable skill to other visual comparison tasks, but best performance is still seen within examiners' domain of expertise.

The study identified the cognitive mechanisms that underly individual differences in mathematics and reading. There is little systematic evidence regarding the connections between cognitive capabilities, mathematics and reading among high-school students with typical development. Moreover, the study aimed to examine whether or not gender is important in predicting cognitive capabilities and performance in mathematics and in reading. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the effects of gender, visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM), numerical working memory (NWM), verbal working memory (VWM), and visual processing (VP) on mathematics and reading performance. A sample of 190 students completed mathematics, reading, VSWM, NWM, VWM, and VP tests. Results showed that mathematical performance was influenced by NWM, VSWM, and VP, while VWM was found to be unrelated to such performance. On the other hand, VWM and VP, but not VSWM, predicted reading performance. Furthermore, while direct correlations between gender, NWM and VP were found, VWM and VSWM were not. The results are important for their theoretical and educational implications.

By the end of primary school, children are expected to acquire a range of mathematical skills that progressively develop. This study aimed to gain insight into how a large number of numerical and geometrical measures are grouped and whether the structures shift or remain invariant along child's development based on the data obtained from a sample of 1346 s to sixth grade children. On the basis of correlation analyses and exploratory factor analyses, we came up with an invariant four-factor structure for each grade. The four factors obtained were the following: (a) early and retrieval skills (subitizing, enumeration, number facts) (b) transcoding and ordinality skills, (c) numerical advanced skills and (d) visual-spatial advanced skills. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the four-factor model fits well to the data (RMSEA < 0.06, CFI > 0.95, GFI > 0.93, SRMR < 0.05) at all grades. The associations between the mathematical measures were captured in each factor and the revealed invariant structure is discussed and compared with previous classification models of mathematical skills. Given that the difficulties in learning mathematics is currently being viewed as a continuum of academic abilities instead of a distinct problem, the underlying invariant four-factor structure can facilitate experts and educators to better understand how a broad area of mathematical skills are related across the primary education, in order to carry our comprehensive assessment of both the mathematical strengths and weaknesses of their students and to apply the appropriate customized teaching strategies.

This experiment employed viewing time methods to investigate the effects of individual differences in visuospatial working memory (VWM) on the processing of older adults' bridging inferences in the understanding of visual narratives. The results showed that older adults could make bridging inferences in visual narrative processing, and that VWM had no significant effect on the generation of older adults' bridging inferences in visual narrative comprehension. The findings of this study have the potential to enrich and advance the theories and models related to discourse comprehension and its inference processing, and they would have important implications for using visual media to facilitate training in inference processing.

Irrelevant salient distractors can trigger early quitting in visual search, causing observers to miss targets they might otherwise find. Here, we asked whether task-relevant salient cues can produce a similar early quitting effect on the subset of trials where those cues fail to highlight the target. We presented participants with a difficult visual search task and used two cueing conditions. In the high-predictive condition, a salient cue in the form of a red circle highlighted the target most of the time a target was present. In the low-predictive condition, the cue was far less accurate and did not reliably predict the target (i.e., the cue was often a false positive). These were contrasted against a control condition in which no cues were presented. In the high-predictive condition, we found clear evidence of early quitting on trials where the cue was a false positive, as evidenced by both increased miss errors and shorter response times on target absent trials. No such effects were observed with low-predictive cues. Together, these results suggest that salient cues which are false positives can trigger early quitting, though perhaps only when the cues have a high-predictive value. These results have implications for real-world searches, such as medical image screening, where salient cues (referred to as computer-aided detection or CAD) may be used to highlight potentially relevant areas of images but are sometimes inaccurate.