Title:
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DO CHILDREN REPRESENT VIRTUAL SPATIAL-TEMPORAL QUALITIES DIFFERENT THAN ADULTS? |
Author(s):
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Selma Dündar-Coecke |
ISBN:
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978-989-8533-93-7 |
Editors:
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Demetrios G. Sampson, Dirk Ifenthaler, Pedro Isaías and Maria Lidia Mascia |
Year:
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2019 |
Edition:
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Single |
Keywords:
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Space, Time, Spatial and Temporal Reasoning, Representation, Virtual, Development |
Type:
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Full Paper |
First Page:
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371 |
Last Page:
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378 |
Language:
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English |
Cover:
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Full Contents:
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click to dowload
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Paper Abstract:
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Decades-old research has demonstrated the effects of virtual space on perception mostly with adult samples. Little is
known about childrens ability to utilize spatial-temporal qualities from computerized settings. Past research with primary
school children suggested that the ability to utilize spatial-temporal information is crucial for inferring cause-effect
relationships of natural phenomena. However, childrens performance lagged behind when spatial-temporal qualities
were presented on a computer screen. To investigate this matter further, 16 adults, 17 nursery, and 19 reception age
children were tested individually (N=52) across three tasks virtual, virtual with less intense, and actual spatial-temporal
tasks-. The results showed that: (1) young children performed poorly on virtual tasks. (2) Childrens ability to process
spatial-temporal information varied largely depending on the characteristics of the task. (3) Spatial-temporal analysis in a
virtual space required extra support from widely distributed domains operating attention and memory. (4) The intensity of
the information presentation at virtual displays influenced young childrens performances, but not adults. The results
may explain why some children cannot perform well / benefit from teaching/learning activities via 2/3-dimensional
settings: the ability to utilize the amount of spatial-temporal information varies widely across development, in particular
when children cannot manipulate the intensity of the information they are exposed to. Missing the third dimension
(e.g. depth) in virtual tasks is challenging for both young and older children in which the majority of them seem to fail to
compensate. Evolutionarily our coping systems seem to be more advanced for extracting spatial-temporal information
from real environments as opposed to virtual. This may challenge in particular the research measuring young childrens
performances from computerized displays. |
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