Making Space: The Development of Spatial
Representation and Reasoning
by Nora S. Newcombe and Janellen Huttenlocher
MIT Press, 2000/2003
262 pages: bibliographic references and index
ISBN 0262140691 (Cloth) - $45.00; ISBN: 0262640503 (paper) $20.00
Amy Ione
The Diatrope Institute
PO Box 12748
Berkeley, CA 94712-3748 USA
ione@diatrope.com
Cognitive psychologists and those who study and practice visual art
share a keen awareness that spatial cognition is more complex than
first meets the eye. With this in mind, and perhaps naively, I turned
to Making Space: The
Development of Spatial Representation and Reasoning.
I hoped to find some insight into cognitive processes frequently by-passed
in the art historical literature. Making Space, I discovered,
had little to say about art directly. Nonetheless, it is a well
researched, effectively organized, and easy to read analysis of research
into human
cognitive functioning. To their credit, Nora Newcombe and Janellen
Huttenlocher place child development in the context of general studies
on adult responses. Opening with a clear discussion of what spatial
competence is, the authors explain that their concern is further comprehending
how people code the locations of things, how they navigate in the
world, and how they represent and mentally manipulate spatial information.
Throughout, the authors provide a detailed
overview of the three approaches that have dominated thinking about
this form of cognition in child psychology.
The first and perhaps best known is Piaget's
contributions. In its current form, theorists claim that infants are
born without knowledge of space or a conception of permanent objects
that occupy space. Operating from this premise, they propose that
we develop such knowledge through experience and manipulation of the
environment. Nativists propose one alternative, suggesting that the
essential aspects of our understanding of space are innate. These
theorists further hold that biological maturation of specific brain
areas can explain whatever aspects are not accounted for at birth.
The third strand of thinking is the Vygotskian approach, which emphasizes
the cultural transmission of spatial skills. Championed originally
by L.S. Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist, this viewpoint claims children
internalize and model what is seen. Thus the social environment is
particularly important and spatial reasoning is defined in terms of
a cognitive-contextual interface.
The strength of the book is the ease with
which Newcombe and Huttenlocher blend these theories. Arguing for
an interactionist approach that incorporates and integrates essential
insights of the three classic approaches, the authors weigh the value
of each theory against its weaknesses. Topics covered include spatial
coding during infancy and childhood; the early origins of coding distance
in continuous space, of coding location with respect to distal external
landmarks, and of hierarchical combination of information; the mental
processes that operate on stored spatial information; spatial information
as encoded in models and maps; and spatial information as encoded
in language.
Weaknesses derive mostly from the narrow framework the authors adopt.
One section that compares spatial location and representation was
particularly thought provoking from the perspective of art education,
although the text does not mention these connections. Had Newcombe
and Huttenlocher considered what art could contribute they might have
incorporated a comprehensive discussion of visual communication. The
value in doing this is that artists (of all ages) invent strategies
for dealing with situations in which they must construct models with
regard to one frame of reference while being situated within another
frame of reference. Similar to normal children learning to build an
understanding of space, the result is a finer subdivision of space
into mentally imposed categories. This improves the accuracy of spatial
coding, easing the process of inference, which is no doubt aided by
developing an increased accuracy in developing mental models.
Integrating the techniques of art education would have also allowed
the book to acknowledge that cognitive science by definition has highlighted
verbal responses rather than equalize those who are more adept in
visual communication. The importance of this is underscored by methodologies
such as the Silver Drawing Test (SDT). Adopting a range of techniques
Silver first learned in art school, the SDT assessment convincingly
demonstrates that the language-based foundations of the field are
apt to miss certain populations that pictures and drawing can help
identify. While I believe these authors understand the difference
between the visual and the verbal, their decision to include a chapter
on language and spatial reasoning without complementing it with one
on visual intelligence was a missed opportunity.
Another missed opportunity was their decision to exclude mention of
historical exercises in representation and art-related empirical research
of our time that relates to spatial views. In my opinion, these are
not trivial areas, best relegated to the periphery. Historically spatial
cognition and representation took hold of Western art when illusionist
rendering was adopted as a primary device in the Renaissance. Although
appreciation for realism has declined in recent centuries, we still
recognize that all cannot equally render what they see. Moreover,
those who pursue representational art professionally generally discover
their talent as children and continue to show their expertise in translating
3-dimensional space to 2-dimensional surfaces as their art matures.
One excellent study that demonstrates the value in examining how populations
compare looked at the portrait painter Humphrey Ocean and a control
group of novices. When tested, unlike the naïve controls, Ocean
spent a great deal of time looking at the relationships in front of
him before marking his canvas. Scans of his brain processing suggest
that his long years of training to see the complexity of the face
as it exists in space (his cognitive development) spoke to a complex
coding process that fostered his ability to re-present what he saw
to us with greater accuracy. It is noteworthy that his processes for
representation (spatial coding) differed from the control groups
tendency simply to locate features and attempt to copy them.
Also of note is Howard Gardner's research. Although his multiple intelligence
theory has become quite diffuse over time, some of the pointed questions
he identified in his earlier work grew out of the kind of research
Making Space highlights. Gardner's book Art, Mind, and Brain:
A Cognitive Approach to Creativity, for example, is a crossover
approach in which cognitive psychology is used to analyze art and
artistic production. This publication begins with some discussion
of his indebtedness to Piaget and the classic theories that define
the terrain of the Newcombe and Huttenlocher analysis. As Gardner
explains, it was the inability of the field (particularly Piaget)
to incorporate the richness of art that had inspired Gardner to seek
beyond the traditional approaches. Admittedly, it was with seeds Gardner's
book had planted in my mind that I turned to Making Space.
Since reading Art, Mind, and Brain I had often thought about
the section where Gardner examined the urge toward objective, representational
drawing that corresponded to the move into the teen years.
In summary, Making Space is an interesting and useful publication,
one that broadly expanded my understanding of recent work related
to the development of spatial representation and reasoning. These
authors argue within the traditional framework, isolating key areas
in which the standard interpretations differ. Their support for applying
the constructivist approach (piagetian with a small 'p') to cognitive
development seems plausible as they outline it. They also correctly
state that models and maps offer entry to this area. Favoring the
Vygotskan approach here, the authors see environmental input as scaffolding
for cognitive development. Nonetheless, this publication is targeted
for a specific and limited audience. Its definition of normalization
adopts long held views built upon a bias toward verbal communication.
No doubt the study's thoroughness will appeal to child psychologists
and cognitive scientists in general. Those hoping for a broader perspective
will find that the work is accessible to the patient reader. Interdisciplinary
links, however, will need to be constructed through a personal critical
analysis since the overall intention is to relate spatial development
to traditional tenets of cognitive science, quantitative development,
theory of mind, and language acquisition.
References
Gardner, Howard. Art, Mind, and Brain: A Cognitive Approach to
Creativity. New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1982.
Silver, Rawley. Three Art Assessments : The Silver Drawing Test,
Draw-a Story, and Stimulus Drawing. New York: Brunner-Routledge,
2001.