UC Davis MIND Institute has another great presentation. by Dr. Tony Simon titled Problems with Space and Time..... Specifically this is about a specific population of children with spatio-temporal challenges. These children are often labeled as having Non Verbal Learning Disabilities, NVLD.
Though this research is not IM research, it shows that some challenges, often labeled as NVLD, are directly identified as weak resolution of time and space, the exact processing that IM impacts. Specific areas of the brain are implicated as well as networks with in the brain. Some of the areas of the brain that Dr. Simon mentions are the same sub-cortical brain areas that MRI's have shown to be activated in IM including the cerebellum and the basal ganglia. He ends with the statement that "there is plenty of evidence that typical spatio-temporal systems are 'plastic' " and the we can 'fix' the problem. Practice and stimulation is what is needed to change and improve these processes.
Below is a bit more detail about the presentation, but I recommend that you just watch it. It's only about 30 minutes long.
Humans have invented units to measure space and time, they are not part of the world, but a human concept. What happens if the concepts that you have in your head don't actually fit into the real world accurately. Space and time estimates will be wrong and numbers won't make much sense to you. Pitch quantities are no different from the typical population, but quantities of space and time have less resolution for these children. Therefore we know it's not a quantities issue, but a resolution issue. Children with 22Q deletions have about 30% worse space and time resolution, which impacts these spatio-temporal skills. Reduced resolutions of space/time units could be compared to the pixels on digital cameras. Though the picture is the same with different number of pixels, the resolution is different and that impacts the mental image that our brain has. The resolution of these mental pictures is lower resulting in crowding in the attentional field. Zone of indifference is greater for students with NVLD type behavior. Please watch the video to get a better understanding of this process.
