In this thesis, I investigate the nature of geometric knowledge and its relationship to spatial intuition. My goal is to rehabilitate the Kantian view that Euclid's geometry is a mathematical practice, which is grounded in spatial intuition, yet, nevertheless, yields a type of a priori knowledge about the structure of visual space. I argue for this by showing that Euclid's geometry allows us to derive knowledge from idealized visual objects, i.e., idealized diagrams by means of non-formal logical inferences. By developing such an account of Euclid's geometry, I complete the "standard view" that geometry is either a formal system (pure geometry) or an empirical science (applied geometry), which was developed mainly by the logical positivists and which is currently accepted by many mathematicians and philosophers. My thesis is divided into three parts. I use Hans Reichenbach's arguments against Kant and Edmund Husserl's genetic approach to the concept of space as a means of arguing that the "standard view" has to be supplemented by a concept of a geometry whose propositions have genuine spatial content. I then develop a coherent interpretation of Euclid's method by investigating both the subject matter of Euclid's geometry and the nature of geometric inferences. In the final part of this thesis, I modify Husserl's phenomenological analysis of the constitution of visual space in order to define a concept of spatial intuition that allows me not only to explain how Euclid's practice is grounded in visual space, but also to account for the apriority of its results.

This thesis develops a creative Project, the "Urban Observatory", situated on a traffic island in the center of Chicago on Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenue along the Chicago River. The aim of the building is to inspire and motivate people to experience the city from a different standpoint and to raise the inhabitant of the city to a different level of perception.The purpose of this study was to explore everyday circumstances and observations of an individual place, the American City and the search for its true genius loci. The main intention is to explore and visualize issues about culturally based differences in behavior and perception of people living in place of 'super scale' and 'high technology' on one side and abandonment and destruction on the other side. The study of the American City and its inhabitants results in an experimental design for an Urban Observatory, an architectural formulation standing in opposition to an architecture of change and fragmentation, an architecture of lost and senseless space. Furthermore the study researches the urban American fabric in practice as well as in theory. The intensive study of the writings of Malcolm Quantrill, Richard Sennett, Toni Hiss and others were the base for developing ideas about how people perceive and react consciously and unconsciously to a specific environment.This helped to identify the frame of the architectural exploration, in order to focus on ideas about: what is architecture of observation in the urban context, and what is the idea of perception in its spatial form?A journal of the design process (sketches, writings), models of varying scale and detail, drawings, photographs, etc. are the working tools to shape the idea of a building and fusing all aspects in a final project. / Department of Architecture

This study presents results describing the impact on acquisition of teaching basic spatial concepts through both music and play. Testing involved preschool aged children from a local Head Start facility and the speech-language clinic of a local university. The study followed a pre-/post-test design. Interventions occurred in two days over the span of one week. After the post-test, it was determined that there was no statistical significance differentiating learning between the two presentation modes. Concept pairs targeted through both contexts improved in almost the same ratio. It was discovered, however, that through only a short period of intervention (two sessions of 15 minutes each), almost all children developed statistically significant growth on concepts taught through both modes. The results indicate that in a short period of time gains can be made when a lesson focuses entirely on concept pairs using either music or play. / Department of Speech Pathology & Audiology

This research examines how cross-modal and within-modal matching differ. Three broad classes of difference are considered, that crossmodal matching requires (a) "translation" between modality-specific stores or (b) "transformation" of information when different information is available through each modality or (c) transformation, whatever the information available through each modality, owing to differences in encoding strategy. Visual-kinaesthetic matching of the end-point of lever movements has been investigated. It is argued that adult cross-modal performance depends on information and strategy, not directly on modality. Results with children have been less clear, experiments were therefore undertaken, with subjects aged 6-9 years. The hypothesis was that childrens' performance also would be determined by available information, and strategy. With information differences eliminated, modality conditions did not differ in within-subject variability, with up to 20 second unfilled retention intervals. With visual information enhanced by background cues and emphasis of the body midline, visual matching was superior to kinaesthetic, and within-modal was superior to cross-modal matching. These differences disappeared with practice, together with coding relative to the midline in the cross-modal conditions. Midline-relative coding was the norm with the midline emphasised, and without background cues. With or without variability differences, VV did not differ from KK in bias, but KV resulted in greater overshooting, VK greater undershooting. The most likely explanation is resistance to movement when perception is kinaesthetic, causing overestimation of distance moved. Consideration of the information normally available to subjects, generated the hypothesis that temporal and spatial parameters should interact more with kinaesthetic than with visual perception. This was supported, since movement velocity biased only kinaesthetic judgements. It is concluded that matching performance depends on the information encoded and used as the basis of matching, which depends on strategy; strategy depends on information (a) available during stimulus presentation, (b) normally available in each modality, (c) which it is anticipated will be available during response.

The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is an endangered species and many efforts are being made to ensure its survival, including numerous research studies. However, there has been little investigation of spatial memory in the giant panda. Spatial memory is an important mechanism for survival in the wild, allowing an animal to find and remember the location of food, mates, den sites and avoid predators. Memory assessment in non-human species typically involves the use of recognition, as opposed to recall tasks. The current study tested spatial memory recall in 1.1 giant pandas using a delayed response memory task. The design required a delayed response to a previously lighted location, with varying lengths of delay between the observation phase and the test phase. The male subject reached criterion at 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, and 10-second delays. The female subject reached criterion at 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 10-, and 15-second delays. The results support the hypothesis that giant pandas have working memory recall ability for spatial location.

Thesis (M.A.)(Hons)--University of Western Sydney, Nepean, 1995. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Psychology, March 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Linköping : Linköpings universitet, 2006. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Thesis (M.Arch.) - Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-104). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-130). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.