#spatial reasoning

[digitalfossils]

[maths-screaming]

Arithmetic as a Spatial Problem

Doing some subtraction with my new friends the dopamine-fueled clicky unit cubes zeroed me in on one thing that makes math hard for dyscalculia brain:

Even basic subtraction demands spatial reasoning.

To-wit: We read/remember numbers left to right (324 = "three hundred twenty-four"), but when we add or subtract them, we do so right to left (286 + 38 = 4 ones, 2 tens, and 3 hundreds, aka "324").

The unit blocks get me around the "hold this abstract symbol for specific units in your working memory" problem by showing me in concrete terms what the numbers look like.

The unit blocks can be ordered either right to left or left to right, but only one at a time. So if I order them left to right (300, 20, 4), I cannot simultaneously order them right to left (4, 20, 300). Those lineups cannot exist side by side. Those are two different configurations of matter at two distinct moments in time.

Yet holding these numbers in my brain to add or subtract requires me both to remember "286" and "38" and to manipulate them as "6 80 200" and "8 30." And then to reorder the results, which I calculated as "4 20 300", back into "324."

People with dyscalculia frequently struggle with spatial reasoning as well - things like learning to tie their shoes, remembering left and right, and following travel directions. I can't peer-reviewed-study prove that "not knowing my right from my left" and "getting lost when I have to keep a three-digit number in my head in two directions at once" stem from the same source, but the cotton candy feeling in my brain sure seems similar.

[sweetpeauserboxes]

[id: a white userbox with a pastel pink border, and pastel pink text that reads “this user has no concept of spatial reasoning.” on the left is an image of a pink heart. /end id]

[crazycatsiren]

And I'm just like, y'all, my spatial reasoning is hot garbage because I have sensory processing disorder, not because I need to play Tetris.

[demonwindu]

solution to the puzzle from earlier

my theory: high ne users will most probably “just begin” folding from “somewhere random” and then, because they are very rarely visual thinkers, run out of memory aka patience! their brain annoyed this new “visualise shit” thing “all of a sudden”. no, this brain works with words.

high ni though, i think, first tries to find the right approach? and i got a lot of replies that say “i just see it” and i think what they see was the right approach?  “okay, how do i solve this?” as opposed to “go, go, go begin folding.” and then “aaargh, i forgot where i was.” basically high ne runs out of visual memory.

i think my solution above is still ti. notice the part that stick out, that doesn’t fit.

[principleofplenitude]

Tversky devotes a lengthy section to gesture, and for good reason: We do it incessantly. We do it naturally when we talk. But Tversky argues that gesturing is more than just a by-product of speech: it literally helps us think. She invites us to try this experiment: “Sit on your hands. Then explain out loud how to get from your house to the supermarket, train station, your office or school.” Turns out, it’s hard. When we can’t gesture, we have trouble speaking; we simply “can’t find the words,” she writes. (She notes that this isn’t just a thought experiment; it’s been confirmed in the lab.) Even people who have been blind from birth seem to rely on gesturing, she says.  Tversky argues that our ability to imagine the layout of objects in space is at the root of a more general — and more essential — skill. This ability, she believes, is the key to abstract thought. “Spatial thinking enables abstract thinking,” she writes. The mind imagines the world, but the objects of the mind are not physical objects. What are they? We might call them ideas; psychologists often call them representations. The important thing is their astounding versatility: we can manipulate them, change them, play with them. They can become “symbols in mathematics, words in poetry, particles in physics, molecules in chemistry, buildings in a neighborhood, dancers on a stage,” she writes. [...] What seems to be universal is the way we imagine time in a linear fashion. Tversky intuits that her readers may be wondering about cyclical conceptions of time (think of all the things that recur every day, like our various meals, or every year, like the seasons). And what about Eastern cultures, which we’re often told have a more cyclical perspective? But Tversky has collected data from China, and it matches the Western form: “Chinese participants responded the same as Americans, overwhelmingly creating linear representations of cyclical events,” she writes. (And then there’s what Tversky calls the “Famous Ambiguous Question”: What does it mean when we receive a memo that says that Wednesday’s meeting “has been moved forward two days”? Apparently half of us take it to mean the meeting has been moved to Monday, half of us presume it means Friday.)

“How the Brain and Body Work Together to Create Thinking“ from Undark

[intothestacks]

There’s an App for That

Bag It!

A great game for those with spatial reasoning difficulties to practice. The idea is that you are trying to fit all the items in the bags provided in a way that the heavy items won’t crush the lighter ones. 

[rwatimes]

Google's Latest AI Update Makes Industrial Robots Way Smarter—Here's How

The new Google Gemini Robotics AI model gives robots improved spatial reasoning and task planning abilities for industrial applications.

➤ Google DeepMind has launched Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6, an AI model enhancing robots' spatial reasoning and task planning for industrial applications. ➤ The model shows improved performance in reading complex instruments and identifying safety hazards, integrating with Boston Dynamics' Spot robots. ➤ This advancement signifies a move towards practical industrial AI, potentially accelerating the adoption of autonomous systems in maintenance, inspection, and monitoring.