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1. A new psychometric task measuring spatial perspective taking in ambulatory virtual reality

   https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.971502  

   He, Chuanxiuyue; Chrastil, Elizabeth R.; Hegarty, Mary (October 2022, Frontiers in Virtual Reality)

   Spatial perspective taking is an essential cognitive ability that enables people to imagine how an object or scene would appear from a perspective different from their current physical viewpoint. This process is fundamental for successful navigation, especially when people utilize navigational aids (e.g., maps) and the information provided is shown from a different perspective. Research on spatial perspective taking is primarily conducted using paper-pencil tasks or computerized figural tasks. However, in daily life, navigation takes place in a three-dimensional (3D) space and involves movement of human bodies through space, and people need to map the perspective indicated by a 2D, top down, external representation to their current 3D surroundings to guide their movements to goal locations. In this study, we developed an immersive viewpoint transformation task (iVTT) using ambulatory virtual reality (VR) technology. In the iVTT, people physically walked to a goal location in a virtual environment, using a first-person perspective, after viewing a map of the same environment from a top-down perspective. Comparing this task with a computerized version of a popular paper-and-pencil perspective taking task (SOT: Spatial Orientation Task), the results indicated that the SOT is highly correlated with angle production error but not distance error in the iVTT. Overall angular error in the iVTT was higher than in the SOT. People utilized intrinsic body axes (front/back axis or left/right axis) similarly in the SOT and the iVTT, although there were some minor differences. These results suggest that the SOT and the iVTT capture common variance and cognitive processes, but are also subject to unique sources of error caused by different cognitive processes. The iVTT provides a new immersive VR paradigm to study perspective taking ability in a space encompassing human bodies, and advances our understanding of perspective taking in the real world. 

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2. Individual Differences in Working Memory and the N2pc

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.620413  

   Couperus, Jane W.; Lydic, Kirsten O.; Hollis, Juniper E.; Roy, Jessica L.; Lowe, Amy R.; Bukach, Cindy M.; Reed, Catherine L. (March 2021, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience)

   The lateralized ERP N2pc component has been shown to be an effective marker of attentional object selection when elicited in a visual search task, specifically reflecting the selection of a target item among distractors. Moreover, when targets are known in advance, the visual search process is guided by representations of target features held in working memory at the time of search, thus guiding attention to objects with target-matching features. Previous studies have shown that manipulating working memory availability via concurrent tasks or within task manipulations influences visual search performance and the N2pc. Other studies have indicated that visual (non-spatial) vs. spatial working memory manipulations have differential contributions to visual search. To investigate this the current study assesses participants' visual and spatial working memory ability independent of the visual search task to determine whether such individual differences in working memory affect task performance and the N2pc. Participants ( n = 205) completed a visual search task to elicit the N2pc and separate visual working memory (VWM) and spatial working memory (SPWM) assessments. Greater SPWM, but not VWM, ability is correlated with and predicts higher visual search accuracy and greater N2pc amplitudes. Neither VWM nor SPWM was related to N2pc latency. These results provide additional support to prior behavioral and neural visual search findings that spatial WM availability, whether as an ability of the participant's processing system or based on task demands, plays an important role in efficient visual search. 

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3. Item Response Theory – A Statistical Framework for Educational and Psychological Measurement

   Yunxiao Chen, Xiaoou Li (March 2023, Statistical science)

   Item response theory (IRT) has become one of the most popular statistical models for psychometrics, a field of study concerned with the theory and techniques of psychological measurement. The IRT models are latent factor models tailored to the analysis, interpretation, and prediction of individuals’ behaviors in answering a set of measurement items that typically involve categorical response data. Many important questions of measurement are directly or indirectly answered through the use of IRT models, including scoring individuals’ test performances, validating a test scale, linking two tests, among others. This paper provides a review of item response theory, including its statistical framework and psychometric applications. We establish connections between item response theory and related topics in statistics, including empirical Bayes, nonparametric methods, matrix completion, regularized estimation, and sequential analysis. Possible future directions of IRT are discussed from the perspective of statistical learning. 

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4. Linking metaphor comprehension with analogical reasoning: Evidence from typical development and autism spectrum disorder

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12542  

   Morsanyi, Kinga; Hamilton, Jayne; Stamenković, Dušan; Holyoak, Keith J. (December 2021, British Journal of Psychology)

   Abstract We examined the relationship between metaphor comprehension and verbal analogical reasoning in young adults who were either typically developing (TD) or diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The ASD sample was highly educated and high in verbal ability, and closely matched to a subset of TD participants on age, gender, educational background, and verbal ability. Additional TD participants with a broader range of abilities were also tested. Each participant solved sets of verbal analogies and metaphors in verification formats, allowing measurement of both accuracy and reaction times. Measures of individual differences in vocabulary, verbal working memory, and autistic traits were also obtained. Accuracy for both the verbal analogy and the metaphor task was very similar across the ASD and matched TD groups. However, reaction times on both tasks were longer for the ASD group. Additionally, stronger correlations between verbal analogical reasoning and working memory capacity in the ASD group indicated that processing verbal analogies was more effortful for them. In the case of both groups, accuracy on the metaphor and analogy tasks was correlated. A mediation analysis revealed that after controlling for working memory capacity, the inter‐task correlation could be accounted for by the mediating variable of vocabulary knowledge, suggesting that the primary common mechanisms linking the two tasks involve language skills. 

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5. Measuring visual ability in linguistically diverse populations

   https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-024-02579-x  

   Hooper, Madison A; Tomarken, Andrew; Gauthier, Isabel (January 2025, Behavior Research Methods)

   Abstract Measurement of object recognition (OR) ability could predict learning and success in real-world settings, and there is hope that it may reduce bias often observed in cognitive tests. Although the measurement of visual OR is not expected to be influenced by the language of participants or the language of instructions, these assumptions remain largely untested. Here, we address the challenges of measuring OR abilities across linguistically diverse populations. In Study 1, we find that English–Spanish bilinguals, when randomly assigned to the English or Spanish version of the novel object memory test (NOMT), exhibit a highly similar overall performance. Study 2 extends this by assessing psychometric equivalence using an approach grounded in item response theory (IRT). We examined whether groups fluent in English or Spanish differed in (a) latent OR ability as assessed by a three-parameter logistic IRT model, and (2) the mapping of observed item responses on the latent OR construct, as assessed by differential item functioning (DIF) analyses. Spanish speakers performed better than English speakers, a difference we suggest is due to motivational differences between groups of vastly different size on the Prolific platform. That we found no substantial DIF between the groups tested in English or Spanish on the NOMT indicates measurement invariance. The feasibility of increasing diversity by combining groups tested in different languages remains unexplored. Adopting this approach could enable visual scientists to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion in their research, and potentially in the broader application of their work in society. 

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