A Case Study of “3D Dice” as a Possible Training for Perspective-Taking Skills: Perspective Taking, Frog Test, and Edugames – Possible Relationships

Introduction To The Work: The “3D Dice”As Possible Teaching Tool

This article is part of a broader study that contemplates the validation of a teaching tool to assess and promote Perspective Taking ability, called Schoolcam (Di Tore et al., 2020) and realized by the Department of Human, Philosophical and Educational Sciences of the University of Salerno. This research is configured, therefore, as subsequent to other phases that had the purpose of favouring or “correcting the aim” regarding the tool to be used to better investigate the construct of Perspective Taking (Lecce, 2019; 2021; Lecce, Di Tore, 2020). The objectives of this research are:

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  to present the “3D Dice” tool

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  to investigate whether the “3D Dice” tool can be considered suitable for training Perspective Taking skills.

Therefore, the article proposes a summary of the construct and the instruments used for the case study (Frog Test and Schoolcam), a technical presentation of the “3D Dice” instrument with the related administration procedure and finally the research methodology with the final results that seem to show an improvement in Perspective Taking ability and motor inhibition after the administration of the presented instrument.

Perspective Taking, Frog Test And Edugame: Possible Relationships

Perspective taking can be considered a socio-cognitive ability that allows people to see, imagine, perceive or think what others see, imagine, perceive or think (Moll & Meltzoff, 2011; Epley & Keysar, 2004). Before acquiring this ability, children have an egocentric interpretation of the world and only from the age of 7 onwards do they begin to acquire a cognitive decentralisation that allows the child to simultaneously consider and coordinate between alternative perspectives (Burns, 1978; Piaget, 1972; Diamond, Kirkham, Amso, 2002).

Several researches have investigated a possible correlation between a good ability to process spatial sequences and school results. It would seem that the results are encouraging especially with regard to text comprehension (Lohman, Tomasello, 2003; Cisotto, 2011; Nelson, 1998), mathematics (Vinckier et al., 2007; Troiani et al., 2009; Li, Geary, 2017; Mix, Cheng, 2012; Uttal, Cohen, 2012) and STEM (Science, technology, engineering, mathematics) skills (Newcombe, 2010; Sorby, 2009).

Perspective Taking, together with problem solving, decision making and cognitive flexibility, appears to be closely linked to executive functions.

Executive functions allow humans the ability to inhibit a number of primitive cognitive strategies or automatic innate reflexes (Berthoz, 2011), adopt socially accepted behaviors and cope with novel situations (Banich, 2009).

There are several interpretative models of executive functions, one of them-and probably the best known-is Miyake's et al. (2000) model according to which the structure of executive functions proceeds through three executive processes:

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  Shifting;

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  Updating;

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  Inhibition.