Overview of visuospatial processing for education in health and natural sciences

This volume of eight chapters, including the present overview, describes several variables affecting the relationship between visuospatial processing and education in health and natural sciences. The scope of the volume is on adult university students executing the small-scale visuospatial processing abilities investigated by the research traditions of spatial ability and working memory. This overview chapter aims to summarize the other seven chapters of the book and to show their general structure. As such, the present chapter briefly describes: (a) the different small-scale abilities that are controlled by the visuospatial processor of working memory (Chap. 2); (b) the reciprocal relationship between visuospatial processing and science education (Chap. 3); (c) the influence of sex (women versus men) on visuospatial processing (Chap. 4); (d) how science instructional visualizations can be optimized following cognitive load theory, and how this optimization is influenced by visuospatial processing (Chap. 5); (e) the relationship between interactive science multimedia (simulations and videogames) and visuospatial processing (Chap. 6); (f) the influence of embodied cognition (mainly object manipulation and gesturing) on science education and visuospatial processing (Chap. 7); and (g) VAR, a battery of instruments that can measure different visuospatial processing abilities in the computer and mobile devices (Chap. 8).