IQ and spatial awareness
Posted: Wed May 17, 2023 11:51 am
I'm wondering why spatial awareness is part of IQ testing when it seems a different category from problem solving, reasoning etc.
Any insights?
Any insights?
I don't have a problem with 3D spatial stuff (ie real life) but find the ones in tests hard. Is it the same skill set or just how my brain works?
Are you left handed? I've (half) a memory of reading somewhere that architects are more left handed than the general population, which might indicate a better than average aptitude for spatial awareness.
I got better at it when I was learning to draw but I haven't drawn in ages so the skill has waned. I suspect there is a learnt element we can acquire if we need it. I'm much more likely to need the ability to get a sofa up stairs or pack items in a limited space than to rotate shapes in my head. The two are obviously connected but not the same.Martin Y wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 1:47 pmIt's something I've been curious about since as a student I was aware that I found it much easier to mentally rotate objects (in a technical drawing class not an X-Men movie) than other students who were at least as bright as me. Spatial ability seems to be more than one thing though, subdividing into a whole range of different tasks.
Rather like facility with languages or music*, I wonder whether the amount of "processing power" our brains devote to each type of task is innate or set in early development, or whether we can retrain ourselves later.
*Mrs Y can sight-sing music from a score but finds it really hard to pick up a song the way most of us do by just hearing it and singing along. Shows that "being good at music" is not one thing.
But now I am retired I discover that some people do not have an internal monologue. WTF? How do they even think? And another group of people have no ability to visualise at all let alone in 3D. I do wonder though is the first group simply misunderstood the question?If classification of students’ learning styles has
practical utility, it remains to be demonstrated.
I am, and I have no trouble doing 3d CAD type things in my head, as well as more abstract things like visualizing complex vector fields in 3d and even a passable stab at visualizing 4d spacetime.
Interesting. Mr Bagpuss and I are both left-handed and we both do pretty well on spatial awareness tests, and also in real life how-to-get-a-piece-of-furniture-round-this-corner-and-through-that-door type stuff. Neither of us can draw to save our lives, mind you, so I don't know what that means.
My 3D thinking comes mostly from sewing, dressmaking and making things with needles of various kinds. A skill I don't think is taught in schools now although knitting and sewing became more popular during lockdown.Boustrophedon wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 3:49 pmThe questions in IQ test on spatial reasoning seem to usually involve pictures of dice and a selection of possible nets. I find these usually trivial but then it is a skill I have practiced. But it is still a problem solving activity. If you wanted to make a cardboard dice you would have to decide where to put the numbers on the net to get the usual opposite sides sum to seven thing. That seems to me a problem that tests thinking ability.
I spent decades of teaching and poo poohing the VAK models of learning, I keep a copy of this paper handy to refute it: "Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence" Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork*, which ends in conclusion:
But now I am retired I discover that some people do not have an internal monologue. WTF? How do they even think? And another group of people have no ability to visualise at all let alone in 3D. I do wonder though is the first group simply misunderstood the question?If classification of students’ learning styles has
practical utility, it remains to be demonstrated.
And then as witnessed trying to teach woodwork, there are the clumsy people who simply cannot coordinate their limbs, including one boy who could model small things with great skill, but could miss the door he was trying to walk through. I used to do a lot of Scottish Country Dancing, one fellow dancer was an Olympic Kayaker, who had two left feet and no rhythm at all. I could not understand how an athlete could be so uncoordinated.
So the 'visual, auditory, kinetic model might seem to have some validity.
Damn.
I worry that now that as Woodwork and metalwork progressed to 'Craft Design and technology', thence to 'Design Technology' and now just Tech and STEM with little or no practical content, that we are producing a cohort of school children with no dexterity beyond their thumbs on a phone. For me the ability to think in 3D came from fitting things together. We have no problem teaching children sport, but look down our noses at making things with their hands.
*https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/1 ... 09.01038.x
Anecdata - but a lot of my colleagues, or now-retired colleagues (so the older population in particular) are lefties. One, when he was a young postdoc in the 1970s (before the 1976 drought) was setting up a university cleanroom with his colleagues. They set it up as a left-handed cleanroom as they all were lefties and he claims they didn't realise that things like vac-pen placements were awkward for right-handers.
Can also be in the other direction - in more sexist countries women more likely to seek out engineering as things seen as more "feminine" are looked down upon more than in less sexist countries and engineering thus becomes a route to status and independence whereas, say, literature, might not.
I don’t visualise things, but I’m quite good at spatial reasoning and awareness. It’s a bit like left and right, I just know which is which I don’t have to visualise it.Boustrophedon wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 3:49 pmAnd another group of people have no ability to visualise at all let alone in 3D.
Definitely see it in 3D.WFJ wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 4:41 pmI have read that men are more likely to think in 3D than women.
In particular, that women are more likely view this
as a 2D object, whereas I struggle to see it as anything but 3D. When I try to think of it as a flat set of lines, all that happens is that which square is the front face of the cube flips in my head.
I'm not sure how true or general this is though.
I generally have to mentally double check any Left/Right directions given, as it's not 100% immediate that I'll know which way that should be. My sister is the same, and she always asked anyone navigating from the passenger seat to go 'your side' / 'my side' for Right and Left respectively.Grumble wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 4:59 pmI don’t visualise things, but I’m quite good at spatial reasoning and awareness. It’s a bit like left and right, I just know which is which I don’t have to visualise it.Boustrophedon wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 3:49 pmAnd another group of people have no ability to visualise at all let alone in 3D.
Sames. I sometimes have to make an L shape with one of my thumb and index fingers and see if it's the right way round to be sure. I don't have to look at it though, just make the shape. Other than that I think I'm quite good with spatial stuff. Can even do nuts and bolts from the wrong side.Gfamily wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 5:36 pmI generally have to mentally double check any Left/Right directions given, as it's not 100% immediate that I'll know which way that should be. My sister is the same, and she always asked anyone navigating from the passenger seat to go 'your side' / 'my side' for Right and Left respectively.Grumble wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 4:59 pmI don’t visualise things, but I’m quite good at spatial reasoning and awareness. It’s a bit like left and right, I just know which is which I don’t have to visualise it.Boustrophedon wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 3:49 pmAnd another group of people have no ability to visualise at all let alone in 3D.
There are two subjects called topology in mathematics, there's analytic topology and algebraic topology, and the maths are rather different in each. I did a course in analytic topology, but not in algebraic topology (though I know some basics). Algebraic topology had a rather ferocious reputation, though I kind of wish I did it now, because it has been where an awful lot of modern maths has been happening, and I can't understand what they are talking about very much. I kind of promise myself I'll read up on al.top when I retire and have some mind space for it. Whether it will happen is another matter.bagpuss wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 3:57 pmInteresting. Mr Bagpuss and I are both left-handed and we both do pretty well on spatial awareness tests, and also in real life how-to-get-a-piece-of-furniture-round-this-corner-and-through-that-door type stuff. Neither of us can draw to save our lives, mind you, so I don't know what that means.
I did maths at university and one of the optional courses was topology. Because I wanted to get my degree credited as Maths/Stats rather than just Maths, I wasn't able to choose it as most of my choices needed to be Stats ones. Having later seen some of the work a friend of mine who did take it was doing, I was very relieved that I hadn't taken it - the maths looked truly hideous. But what was weird was that she found the maths easy, but just couldn't get her head round visualising whether two 3D objects were toplogically the same or not. I was completely the opposite - that part seemed easy to me but the maths - aaargh!
Just before Dad died, he gave me his father's molecular modelling set from the 1950s. Not the sort you might see at school, but for actually working out the shape of molecules.FlammableFlower wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 9:31 pmChemistry, and in particular organic chemistry, gets very 3D as you progress as where things are in space influences if, why and how they react. I have no idea of any gender split, but lots of students struggle with visualising flat 2D representations as 3D entities. It's one of the reasons we allow 3D model kits in our exams.
I wouldn’t be able to guess that, afaik chemical engineering involves very little chemistry. An appreciation of it, sure, but not really molecular structuresjimbob wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 10:01 pmJust before Dad died, he gave me his father's molecular modelling set from the 1950s. Not the sort you might see at school, but for actually working out the shape of molecules.FlammableFlower wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 9:31 pmChemistry, and in particular organic chemistry, gets very 3D as you progress as where things are in space influences if, why and how they react. I have no idea of any gender split, but lots of students struggle with visualising flat 2D representations as 3D entities. It's one of the reasons we allow 3D model kits in our exams.
His father was a chemical engineer, in case you couldn't guess.
You sound almost the opposite to me. I don't really have an internal monologue as far as I can tell, but often, especially if doing a task, just have a visual image of what I want to do. It makes it difficult if I need someone to pass a tool or move somewhere, because I have no words for it when my brain is trying to solve the problem.IvanV wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 9:54 pmThere are two subjects called topology in mathematics, there's analytic topology and algebraic topology, and the maths are rather different in each. I did a course in analytic topology, but not in algebraic topology (though I know some basics). Algebraic topology had a rather ferocious reputation, though I kind of wish I did it now, because it has been where an awful lot of modern maths has been happening, and I can't understand what they are talking about very much. I kind of promise myself I'll read up on al.top when I retire and have some mind space for it. Whether it will happen is another matter.bagpuss wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 3:57 pmInteresting. Mr Bagpuss and I are both left-handed and we both do pretty well on spatial awareness tests, and also in real life how-to-get-a-piece-of-furniture-round-this-corner-and-through-that-door type stuff. Neither of us can draw to save our lives, mind you, so I don't know what that means.
I did maths at university and one of the optional courses was topology. Because I wanted to get my degree credited as Maths/Stats rather than just Maths, I wasn't able to choose it as most of my choices needed to be Stats ones. Having later seen some of the work a friend of mine who did take it was doing, I was very relieved that I hadn't taken it - the maths looked truly hideous. But what was weird was that she found the maths easy, but just couldn't get her head round visualising whether two 3D objects were toplogically the same or not. I was completely the opposite - that part seemed easy to me but the maths - aaargh!
An.top. has the concept of the homeomorphism, whereas al.top. has homotopy. Two sets have the same topological shape whether they are homeomorphic, or homotopically equivalent. So topological shape exists as a question in both disciplines. But homeomorphy is really much more about whether the spaces have the same "texture". Whereas in al.top, basically all the spaces you deal with have the same texture as Euclidean spaces, of various dimensions. So homotopy is much more addressed to the question of whether shapes are topologically the same. Continuity is the big issue in an.top. But there's a lot else in algebraic topology, and most of the interest is beyond shape. So, visualising 3-d shapes as topologically equivalent, really not a big issue for being able to do either kind of topology.
Someone mentioned people who can't visualise things in their head. If they are referring to the the condition called aphantasia, then I think I have that. It is described as the inability to picture things in your mind. But although I have no pictures in my mind, I think I have quite good spatial awareness, I just don't do my visualisation in the form of pictures. I'm good at reading maps, and working things out in a spatial sense. Although I don't see a picture of a map in my mind, I can think about what I would see if I had the map in front of me. I can remember the topology of the map. If I try to draw that map for someone from memory, it is topologically accurate, but very badly distorted as a diagram. It may explain why I am and always have been completely useless at drawing. I'm much better at constructing diagrams with rulers, set squares, etc.
It was possibly more on the development side, for example he worked with the inventor of polystyrene.Grumble wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 10:06 pmI wouldn’t be able to guess that, afaik chemical engineering involves very little chemistry. An appreciation of it, sure, but not really molecular structuresjimbob wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 10:01 pmJust before Dad died, he gave me his father's molecular modelling set from the 1950s. Not the sort you might see at school, but for actually working out the shape of molecules.FlammableFlower wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 9:31 pmChemistry, and in particular organic chemistry, gets very 3D as you progress as where things are in space influences if, why and how they react. I have no idea of any gender split, but lots of students struggle with visualising flat 2D representations as 3D entities. It's one of the reasons we allow 3D model kits in our exams.
His father was a chemical engineer, in case you couldn't guess.