Introduction to the special issue on spatial learning and reasoning processes.

This issue presents the evolving understanding of spatial cognition. Considering individual differences in spatial problem solving has both expanded the domain of spatial thinking and led to new ways to measure spatial thinking. While there is general agreement in the field that spatial thinking is not one unitary process, there is less agreement about what cognitive processes might subserve spatial thinking. The SILC research center has found a typology used in semantic analysis helpful in guiding research. This typology postulates two dimensions of spatial representation— thinking about static versus moving objects, and thinking about spatial relations within versus between objects. There is evidence that these two dimensions are cognitively and neurologically distinct (Chatterjee 2008). Research in this issue expands what we know about these dimensions in understanding reasoning about spatial relations at small (object-level) scales and larger (navigation-level) scales. Understanding the mechanisms underlying spatial thinking requires programmatic research that crosses disciplinary boundaries in psychology (e.g., perception, cognition, linguistics) and between the social and natural sciences. This issue offers case studies to illustrate the value of this approach. Further, the issue provides examples of the interrelationship between basic science in this area and applications to education. A central goal of our work is to use our understanding of spatial thinking to support education, particularly science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. A number of papers in this issue approach complex spatial thinking by looking at how humans understand the complex spatial patterns found in nature (Atit et al., Harris et al., Hinze et al., Jee et al., and Resnick & Shipley). An interdisciplinary approach to spatial thinking has fostered collaborations between natural science experts and cognitive scientists. It also guides a developmental approach to visualizing spatial change that spans the range from novice (or young) spatial reasoner to expert. The successes reported in this issue in the fields of geology (Resnick et al. and Jee et al.), chemistry (Hinze et al.) and mathematics (Flanagan, Schultheis & Barkowsky and Taylor & Tenbrink) can serve as models for how to develop our understanding of how the mind works by understanding how it grasps formal scientific descriptions of the world and how to best educate novice spatial thinkers. Concretely, this issue offers formal characterization of how humans visualize non-rigid changes (Atit et al. and, Resnick & Shipley), reviews what we know about the development of this skill in children (Harris et al.), examines this skill in experts, and even how it enters into the language used when thinking about folding paper (Taylor & Tenbrink). This issue also explores new ways to promote spatial learning, by applying research on analogical processing. For example, Jee et al. show that students’ learning of the geoscience concept of a fault can be promoted by providing them with highly alignable contrasting pairs. The expansion of research has built on new ways of assessing spatial thinking. It has also suggested a natural learning path from action to abstraction, whereby spatial knowledge is initially grounded in embodied cognition and become more abstract through spatial processes such as gesture, sketching, analogical comparison and the use of T. F. Shipley (&) Department of Psychology and Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA e-mail: tshipley@temple.edu