IMPACT OF LITERACY TRAINING ON SPATIAL REPRESENTATION IN SOUTHWEST ETHIOPIA

In order to study the impact of literacy training on visual-spatial co gnitive performance, the Kohs Block Design and the ''Draw-a-person-wit h-face-in-front (DAPF)'' lest were administered to two distinct popula tions of agricultural pastoralists in Southwest Ethiopia. The Karo hav e no literacy training while the Hamar subjects had had several years of schooling. As expected, Hamar subjects (who were literate) produced a larger percentage (43.1%) of correct block constructions as cornpar ed to the Karo who produced only 16.7% correct block constructions. Er ror analysis, however, revealed that the Karo produced a larger propor tion (27.08%) of ''nonrandom'' error types (errors, which nevertheless preserved essential spatial attributes, the shapes of the target desi gn, while neglecting its spatial relations) than did the literate Hama r subjects (9.03%). Similarly 57.6% of face drawings by nonliterate Ka ro subjects and only 8.3% of Hamar drawings were classified as resembl ing the ''neolithic'' protype (also neglecting spatial relations). Res ults support the hypothesis that literacy influences spatial-relationa l cognitive skills. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.