ABSTRACT

Spatial adaptation is the process of adjusting one’s mental representations for a task, so that spatial details necessary for performing the task are captured in the representations, whereas irrelevant details are ignored. We believe this process plays a critical role both in spatial ability tests and in STEM domains because it produces problem-tailored representations that can facilitate mental manipulation by representing only task-relevant details. Here, we present a computational model that illustrates the importance of spatial adaptation in a mental rotation task. The model automatically generates shape representations by segmenting objects into parts at concavities. It adjusts its representations in two ways: by varying the number of parts used to represent a shape, and by varying the types of information encoded for each part. Critically, the model can adapt to a mental rotation task by adjusting the degree of detail in its shape representations automatically, based on how much detail is needed to distinguish the shapes from distractors.

摘要

空间适应是调整一个人的心理表征以完成一项任务的过程，以便在表征中捕获执行任务所需的空间细节，而忽略无关的细节。我们认为，此过程在空间能力测试和STEM领域中都扮演着至关重要的角色，因为它产生了针对问题的表示形式，可以通过仅表示与任务相关的细节来促进心理操作。在这里，我们提出了一个计算模型，该模型说明了心理适应任务中空间适应的重要性。该模型通过将对象分割成凹面的零件来自动生成形状表示。它以两种方式调整其表示形式：通过更改用于表示形状的部分的数量，以及通过更改为每个部分编码的信息的类型。至关重要的是