地理课程与空间能力相关性的脑实证研究

The correlation between geography courses and spatial ability:An empirical study of brain imaging

空间能力是人类进行日常行为的基本能力之一,以往研究表明地理教育与空间能力相关.但是目前研究缺乏从脑科学角度分析地理课程与空间能力的相关性.本文基于功能磁共振成像(functional magnetic resonance imaging,fMRI)的空间能力实验,收集地理专业大学生的脑影像数据,运用表征相似性分析(representational similarity analysis,RSA)计算地理课程成绩与脑区激活模式之间的相关系数及其显著性,揭示地理课程与空间能力的相关关系.结果表明,地理学本科核心课程(自然地理、自然地理实习、人文地理、地图学、地理信息系统、遥感)成绩与空间能力测试的正确率存在正相关,与反应时存在负相关;人文地理、地图学、遥感课程成绩与空间能力测试任务状态下的脑区激活模式存在相关性.本文从脑神经机制的层面提供了地理课程与大学生空间能力相关的实证依据,为地理课程评价、空间能力培养提供了跨学科的研究视角.

Spatial ability is one of the basic aspects of human daily behaviour and is closely related to navigation;wayfinding;science,technology,engineering and mathematics(STEM);and other fields.Spatial ability can be enhanced through specific training methods during brain development.Previous studies have shown that geography education can improve spatial ability.Using behavioural data,researchers have shown a correlation between geography courses and spatial ability.However,there is a lack of research on the cognitive processes and neural mechanisms of geography courses’correlation with spatial ability.Traditional behavioural research uses various scales to evaluate spatial ability.Recent studies have combined these scales with eye-tracking technology to analyse individual differences in spatial ability from the perspective of visual processes.Among neural imaging methods,functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI)has been used to identify the activated brain regions involved in mental rotation,spatial orientation,and spatial relation reasoning.Representational similarity analysis(RSA)expands upon mass-univariate analysis by providing information about how regions of the brain represent information and revealing the similarities between representations of behaviour and brain activity.Previous neuroimaging studies have used comparative experiments to confirm that geography education can affect the spatial ability of undergraduate students.However,the functional mechanism through which geography courses are associated with spatial ability is still unclear.In this study,we conducted an fMRI experiment with 15 participants.All the participants were undergraduate students of geography science and completed four spatial ability tasks,including mental rotation,spatial orientation,spatial visualization and spatial relation reasoning.Using representational similarity analysis,the correlation between students’achievements in geography courses and the activation patterns of brain regions was determined.The results showed that achievement in the core courses of geography for undergraduate students(physical geography,physical geography practice,human geography,cartography,geographic information systems,and remote sensing)was positively correlated with accuracy in the spatial ability tasks and negatively correlated with response time.The achievements in human geography,cartography and remote sensing courses were correlated with the activation patterns of brain regions during spatial ability tasks.Our findings offer neuroscientific evidence that geography courses are correlated with the spatial ability of undergraduate students and provide an interdisciplinary research perspective for geography curriculum assessment and the development of students’spatial ability.