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Fronto-parietal connectivity as a cross-task predictor of spatial ability across navigation and mental rotation

Poster Session F - Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Melody Schwenk¹ (), Lorna Quandt¹; ¹Gallaudet University

Spatial tasks like navigation and mental rotation (MR) share behavioral characteristics, but it remains unclear whether they rely on common neural mechanisms and whether such mechanisms are experience-dependent. We asked whether brain connectivity during navigation could predict MR ability and whether sensory-linguistic experience shapes these neural pathways. Twenty-eight participants (13 deaf ASL users, 15 hearing) completed an online MR test and an EEG navigation task involving egocentric and allocentric perspective-taking. Using bootstrap confidence intervals, we examined fronto-parietal phase-locking values and their relationship to rotation performance. In hearing participants, fronto-parietal connectivity during allocentric navigation predicted MR accuracy across multiple frequency bands (theta: r = -.40, p = .036; alpha: r = -.43, p = .022). For hearing participants, navigation connectivity explained 37% of rotation variance when controlling for navigation behavior (semi-partial r = -.61, p = .022). Critically, this relationship strengthened linearly with rotation angle (r = .59, p = .046), suggesting the connectivity reflects domain-general spatial processing rather than task-specific effort or arousal. Both groups achieved equivalent behavioral performance despite distinct neural predictors. In deaf ASL users, fronto-parietal coupling did not predict rotation accuracy (r = -.28, ns); right-hemisphere lateralization predicted performance (r = -.67, p = .016). These findings suggest experience-dependent neuroplasticity in spatial cognition: equivalent behavioral performance emerged through distinct neural mechanisms in deaf and hearing participants. This neural diversity implies that effective assessment practices and STEM education require recognizing and supporting multiple neural pathways to spatial reasoning, rather than designing interventions around a single neural architecture.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Spatial