Andrea Nuernberger, Ph.D. - US grants

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).

Everyday spatial behaviors in geographic space are essential activities in a person's life. Researchers have not yet developed instruments that sufficiently examine and evaluate these spatial behaviors, which include, among others, wayfinding, following directions, and learning new environments. Numerous psychometric tests exist that examine spatial abilities at the "table top" scale, but these tests are limited and relatively unsuccessful when trying to explain variations in everyday geographic spatial behavior. This project will develop and evaluate a series of self-assessed Scales for Everyday Environmental Knowledge (SEEK), which are designed to give a baseline indication of personal confidence when undertaking person-environment interactions and which can be used as variables in explanatory schema of human behavior in real-world environments. I n the first phase of this project, the investigators will examine the SEEK scales for internal consistency and reliability. They also will correlate the scales, which consist of statements with which a person strongly agrees or disagrees, with measures of spatial task performance. Considerable research has found that self-report assessment scales generally are positively correlated in particular task environments with measures of spatial knowledge acquired from direct experience. A selection of laboratory and real-world task scenarios will be set up as experimental tasks, and the performance on these tasks will be evaluated using one or more of the SEEK scores. In the second phase of the study, the investigators will use these scales in a longitudinal analysis of a particular disabled group, those suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Decreasing spatial abilities are an early sign of Alzheimer's disease, and this often rapidly progressing condition presents major declines in a person's quality of life. Despite the severity of this situation, few research efforts have investigated how changes in spatial abilities in this population can be assessed and monitored over time. By employing the SEEK scales, researchers hope to develop a simple, low-cost, non-invasive instrument that can complement sophisticated predictive testing methods for Alzheimer?s disease.

This project will address the pressing need for assessment methods of spatial knowledge characteristics and human spatial behavior in geographic spaces. The project will improve the methodology available to researchers who want to gain knowledge about people's existing environmental memory, and predict their environmental spatial behavior in familiar and unfamiliar environments. It also has great potential for practical applications. The SEEK scales will be applicable in various settings where it is beneficial to add the self-assessment of a specific spatial ability to the set of variables that explain certain types of spatial behavior. These settings include research in spatial abilities, aptitude assessments for jobs that require high spatial abilities, such as taxi driver or parcel delivery, and education in the STEM disciplines where research shows a correlation with high spatial abilities.