Research

Guy navigating on a bike

Individual Differences in Navigation Ability and Strategy

The Spatial Thinking Lab conducts research on Large Scale or Environmental Spatial Cognitive processes, including learning the layout of new environments, wayfinding and navigation in known environments, and representing and communicating spatial information. This research has contributed new measures, such as the Santa Barbara Sense-of-Direction Scale, and basic research on the nature individual differences in large scale spatial cognition. Current research is focused on identifying fundamental individual differences in neurological and cognitive processes as well as attitudes that differentiate people with a good vs. poor sense of direction.
Ovarian Hormones & Navigation

Ovarian Hormones and Spatial Cognition

The Spatial Thinking Lab is conducting work that is elucidating the link between ovarian hormones and spatial cognition. Aspects of these projects include measuring spatial cognition abilities at different points of a woman's menstrual cycle, examining impacts of ovarian hormone suppression in young women on navigation ability, and how midlife and menopause impact spatial abilities.
Image of Student Looking at a Chemistry Model

Mechanisms of Visuospatial Thinking in STEM

Visuospatial thinking is a critical component of cognition in the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) domains. Across all STEM disciplines, experts reason about spatial relationships and transformation of those relationships. The spatial information that they consider varies substantially in scale, from small molecules to planetary objects. It also varies in complexity, from basic geometric shapes to the dynamic motion of particles in three-dimensional space. In the spatial thinking lab, we study the nature of spatial thinking in STEM disciplines, and how success in these disciplines is related to measures of spatial ability and visuospatial working memory.