The Role of Spatial Anxiety in Mental Folding

The purpose of this study was to examine the development of mental folding using a new measure for six- to eight-year-olds, specifically with two goals: (1) to investigate the relationship between mental folding and spatial anxiety as a function of working memory, and (2) to get further insight into the differences between mental folding and mental rotation using various math and vocabulary tasks. No relationship was found between spatial anxiety and mental rotation or mental folding, nor between spatial anxiety and working memory. Unlike previous research, mental rotation performance and spatial anxiety levels did not differ as a function of gender. Mental folding was found to be more highly related to vocabulary, supporting prior research that suggested that mental folding is more likely to utilize verbal analytic strategies than mental rotation.