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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 group’s 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.

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