Spatial thinking from a different view: Disentangling top-down and bottom-up processes using eye tracking

Benedict C. O. F. Fehringer

doi:10.1515/psych-2020-0105

Abstract

AbstractThe goal of the present study was to investigate the potential of gaze fixation patterns to reflect cognitive processing steps during test performance. Gaze movements, however, can reflect top-down and bottom-up processes. Top-down processes are the cognitive processing steps that are necessary to solve a certain test item. In contrast, bottom-up processes may be provoked by varying visual features that are not related to the item solution. To disentangle top-down and bottom-up processes in the context of spatial thinking, a new test (R-Cube-Vis Test) was developed and validated explicitly for the usage of eye tracking in three studies as long and short version. The R-Cube-Vis Test measures visualization and is conform to the linear logistic test model with six difficulty levels. All items of one level demand the same transformation steps to solve an item. The R-Cube-Vis Test was then utilized to investigate different gaze-fixation-based indicators to identify top-down and bottom-up processes. Some of the indicators were also able to predict the correctness of the answer of a single item. Gaze-related measures have a high potential to reveal cognitive processing steps during solving an item of a given difficulty level, if top-down and bottom-up processes can be segregated.

Highlights

Psychological diagnostics cover the testing of someone’s abilities or personality characteristics that can lead to informed decisions in the present or about future events (e.g., Swets, Dawes, & Monahan, 2000)
According to the results of the preliminary study that showed a non-normal distribution of the reaction times, the logarithmized reaction times of the Chronometric Test (CT) were used for further analyses
Results of Andersen’s likelihood ratio test of Rasch model (RM) showed good fits for ACC-poss, and all splits of weighted accuracy (wACC), p ≥ .98 (Table 5), which is supported by the plots showing the estimated β’s for low and high ability groups pitted against each other (Figure 6)

Summary

Introduction

Psychological diagnostics cover the testing of someone’s abilities or personality characteristics that can lead to informed decisions in the present or about future events (e.g., Swets, Dawes, & Monahan, 2000). In performance testing, it might be interesting to get insights into the cognitive steps that lead to the given answer of a certain task. On the one hand, such information could be used to detect inappropriate solving strategies, which might be important if the test performance is poor. If the knowledge about appropriate solving strategies is not intended to be measured by the test, the information about the usage of inappropriate strategies could be used to, e.g., reevaluate the test or to teach appropriate solving strategies for a follow-up test. The knowledge about such cognitive steps might be able to differentiate between participants with high and low ability even if the items have ceiling or floor effects and/or have a high guessing probability. Information about how participants solve certain items is usually not

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