Visualizing cross sections: Training spatial thinking using interactive animations and virtual objects

•Two experiments demonstrated the efficacy of a spatial training intervention.•Participants were undergraduates who were challenged by spatial thinking.•The novel protocol uses interactive animation and virtual objects.•Performance gains and limited transfer occurred after a brief training period.•Results are considered with respect to two accounts of improvement after training.

In two experiments, we investigated the efficacy of a brief intervention that used interactive animation to train students to infer the two-dimensional cross section of a virtual three-dimensional geometric figure. Undergraduates with poor spatial ability were assigned to receive the intervention or to a control group. Compared to the control group, trained participants improved significantly on stimuli viewed during the intervention and demonstrated transfer to untrained stimuli. Results were considered with respect to two accounts of performance gains and transfer after spatial visualization training, an instance-based account and a process-based account. The instance-based account attributes performance gains to a larger store of memories and predicts no transfer to new stimuli or new spatial processes. The process-based account attributes performance gains to increased efficiency of mental processes and predicts transfer to new stimuli and tasks that share the same mental processes. The results of these experiments cannot be accounted for by an instance-based account alone. Performance gains and transfer in these experiments suggest that interactive animation and virtual solids are promising tools for training spatial thinking in undergraduates.

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