Investigating the Relationship Between Aberrant Salience and Spatial Ability

The main goal of this project will be to determine whether there is a correlational relationship between aberrant salience and spatial ability. I will present a review of the literature that supports a potential link between the two factors using evidence from similarities in affected brain regions, behavioral evidence, and relationships found in mental diseases such as schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder. The main conceptual idea is that those with aberrant salience overattribute importance to unimportant stimuli, and overattribute importance to irrelevant stimuli, leading to a decreased ability to analyze spatially complex tasks. The main task we will be using for spatial ability is a task that involves mental rotation. Additionally, we have a series of questions prepared which determine the extent of one's aberrant salience. These two variables will be compared to determine if aberrant salience has a negative correlation with spatial ability.