Engineers’ abilities influence spatial perspective changing

Paola Verde (Aerospace Medicine Department Flight Experimental Centre Pratica di Mare AFB, Pomezia, Rome, Italy)
Gregorio Angelino (Aerospace Medicine Department Flight Experimental Centre Pratica di Mare AFB, Pomezia, Rome, Italy)
Francesco Piccolo (Aerospace Medicine Department Flight Experimental Centre Pratica di Mare AFB, Pomezia, Rome, Italy)
Paolo Corrazzo (Aerospace Medicine Department Flight Experimental Centre Pratica di Mare AFB, Pomezia, Rome, Italy)
Laura Piccardi (Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy Neuropsychology Unit, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy)
Raffaella Nori (Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy)

IJEE (International Journal of Engineering Education)
Vol 1, No 2 (2019)

In this paper we studied the effect of engineering expertise in providing directional judgments. We asked two groups of people, engineers and non-engineers, to observe and memorize five maps, each including a four-point path, for 30 sec. The path was then removed and the participants had to provide two directional judgments: aligned (the imagined perspective on the task was the same as the one just learned), and counter-aligned (the imagined perspective on the task was rotated by 180°). Our results showed that engineers are equally able to perform aligned and counter-aligned directional judgments. The alignment effect due to the distance from the learning perspective was, in fact, shown only by non-engineers. Results are discussed considering engineering both learning expertise and specific predisposition.