Journal for Geometry and Graphics 17 (2013), No. 1, 089--100
Copyright Heldermann Verlag 2013
Evaluation of Spatial Imagination Ability in Reading
Hirokazu Abe
Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 567-0047, Japan
abe@arch.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp
Mayumi Hamano
Design Section, Architectural Design Department, Nikken Sekkei Ltd., Osaka 541-8528, Japan
hamano.mayumi@nikken.jp
Miya Fukui
Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 567-0047, Japan
Words or paragraphs often create a concrete image in our minds. When reading a book, we can relive in our minds the same experiences the heroines or heroes have gone through. However, the imagined scenery of the reader and the author may not always be the same. In this paper, we define "spatial imagination ability" as the ability to imagine concrete scenery that corresponds to a written description in a book, and we developed the Spatial Imagination Test (SIT) to examine this ability. The results are as follows: (1) Approximately half of the subjects who read the paragraph obtained a similar image for the spatial layout of the house. However, their designs had different styles. (2) Drawings of over 35% contained rooms that were not described in the paragraph. (3) The average scores of the MCT were higher for students who drew undescribed rooms than for those who did not. However, statistical analysis showed that there was no significant difference (5% level) between the groups.
Keywords: Spatial ability, Spatial Imagination Test (SIT), Mental Cutting Test (MCT).
MSC: 97G80
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