Visual-Spatial Processing in Urban and Rural Elementary Schoolchildren

摘要

The objective of the study was to analyze complex visual object processing in 6-year-old children from urban and rural primary schools. All the children were regular pupils. The study has estimated subjects' ability to recognize global and local aspects of visual patterns by measuring accuracy of response and reaction time (RT) to hierarchical letters (Volberg, 2007). Low level of accuracy in recognition of local features of hierarchical visual stimuli was found in both groups of children. At the same time, rural children showed peculiarities of hierarchical stimulus recognition, which consisted, among other aspects, low accuracy level of global features perception, shorter RT to incongruent stimuli combined with low performance accuracy and absence of global precedence effect (Navon, 2003). Obtained results suggest quantitative and qualitative differences in responses of children from different social background during processing of complex visual characteristics of objects. The results suggest that social development can influence specific features of visual-spatial perception, attention and learning of children.