Abstract
Previous research indicates relative independence between the ventral and dorsal visual pathways, nassociated with object and spatial visual processing, respectively. The present research shows that, at the individualdifferences level, there is a trade-off, rather than independence, between object and spatial visualization abilities. Across five different age groups with different professional specializations, participants with above-average object visualization abilities (artists) had below-average spatial visualization abilities, and the inverse was true for those with above-average spatial visualization abilities (scientists). No groups showed both above-average object and above-average spatial visualization abilities. Furthermore, while total object and spatial visualization resources increase with age and experience, the trade-off relationship between object and spatial visualization abilities does not. These results suggest that the trade-off originates through a bottleneck that restricts the development of overall visualization resources, rather than through preferential experience in one type of visualization.
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The research was supported by the Office of Naval Research under Grants ONR-N000140810382 and ONR-N000140611072 to M.K.
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Kozhevnikov, M., Blazhenkova, O. & Becker, M. Trade-off in object versus spatial visualization abilities: Restriction in the development of visual-processing resources. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 17, 29–35 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.1.29
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.1.29