The role of stimulus axis salience in children's ability to mentally rotate unfamiliar figures

A mental rotation task with unfamiliar stimuli was presented to 5-year-old (n = 36) and 8-year-old children (n = 36). The stimuli contained either an intrinsic salient axis (S +) or no salient axis (s-). Results showed that both 5-year-old and 8-year-old children were able to perform the mental rotation task with the S + stimulus. However, 5-year-old children had difficulties in performing the mental rotation task with the S- stimulus. These results suggest that there are limitations in mental rotation abilities of young children. The ability to encode and mentally rotate unfamiliar stimuli containing no salient axis seems to improve between the ages of 5 and 8.     

Mental rotation with egocentric and object-based transformations

Two experiments were conducted to address methodological issues with past studies investigating the influence of egocentric and object-based transformations on performance and sex differences in mental rotation. In previous work, the egocentric and object-based mental rotation tasks confounded the stimulus type (embodied vs. non-embodied) and transformation task (egocentric vs. object-based). In both experiments presented here, the same stimuli were used regardless of the type of transformation but task instructions were modified to induce either egocentric (left–right judgment) or object-based (same–different judgment) processing. Experiment 1 used pairs of letters whereas Experiment 2 presented pairs of line-drawings of human hands. For both experiments, it was hypothesized that the mental rotation slope for response time would be steeper for object-based than for egocentric transformations. This hypothesis was verified in both experiments. Furthermore, Experiment 2 showed a reduced male advantage for egocentric compared to object-based rotations, whereas this pattern was reversed for Experiment 1. In conclusion, the present study showed that the influence of the type of transformation involved in mental rotation can be examined with the same set of stimuli simply by modifying task instructions.     

Controlled and automatic processing during mental rotation

In two experiments, 9- and 10-year-olds and adults were tested on a mental rotation task in which they judged whether stimuli presented in different orientations were letters or mirror-images of letters. The mental rotation task was performed alone on 48 trials and concurrently with a memory task on 48 additional trials. The concurrent memory task in Experiment 1 was recalling digits; in Experiment 2, recalling positions in a matrix. The key result was that the slope of the function relating response time to stimulus orientation was the same when the mental rotation task was performed alone and when performed concurrently with the memory task. This result is interpreted as showing that mental rotation is an automatic process for both children and adults.     

Maintaining readiness for mental rotation interferes with perceptual processes in children but with response selection in adults

Previous work revealed that mental rotation is not purely inserted into a same-different discrimination task. Instead, response time (RT) is slowed to upright stimuli in blocks containing rotated stimuli compared to RT to the same upright stimuli in pure upright blocks. This interference effect is a result of maintaining readiness for mental rotation. In two experiments we investigated previous evidence that these costs depend upon distinct sub-processes for children and for adults. In Experiment 1, the maintaining costs turned out to be independent of the visual quality of the stimulus for adults but not so for children. Experiment 2 revealed that the maintaining costs were greatly reduced for adults when they performed mental rotation as a go-no-go task, but not so for children. Taken together, both experiments provide evidence that whereas perceptual processes seem to be important for school-age children to maintain readiness for mental rotation, response selection is relevant for adults.     

Violation of pure insertion during mental rotation is independent of stimulus type, task, and subjects' age

The experiment validated and extended the finding of Ilan and Miller (1994) [A violation of pure insertion: mental rotation and choice reaction time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Psychophysics 20, 520-536] that the mental rotation process is not purely inserted into a mirror-normal discrimination task. In contrast to their work we used other experimental stimuli (drawings of animals instead of characters), a different task (same/different comparison) and investigated this effect under a developmental perspective. Adults and children between the age of 8 and 10 took significantly longer to respond to upright drawings of animals in conditions containing rotated stimuli than in conditions containing only upright stimuli, indicating a violation of pure insertion. In general, we found evidence that the violation of pure insertion during a mental rotation task itself can be generalised across stimulus type, task, and subject populations. However, for children this effect was independent of the format of the stimuli, while for adults the effect was larger for mirror-imaged than for identical objects. This suggests that the violation of pure insertion might occur at different processing stages as a function of age.     

The importance of gesture in children's spatial reasoning

On average, men outperform women on mental rotation tasks. Even boys as young as 4 1/2 perform better than girls on simplified spatial transformation tasks. The goal of our study was to explore ways of improving 5-year-olds' performance on a spatial transformation task and to examine the strategies children use to solve this task. We found that boys performed better than girls before training and that both boys and girls improved with training, whether they were given explicit instruction or just practice. Regardless of training condition, the more children gestured about moving the pieces when asked to explain how they solved the spatial transformation task, the better they performed on the task, with boys gesturing about movement significantly more (and performing better) than girls. Gesture thus provides useful information about children's spatial strategies, raising the possibility that gesture training may be particularly effective in improving children's mental rotation skills.     

Sex differences and the factor of time in solving Vandenberg and Kuse mental rotation problems

In accounting for the well-established sex differences on mental rotation tasks that involve cube stimuli of the Shepard and Metzler (Shepard & Metzler, 1971) kind, performance factors are frequently invoked. Three studies are presented that examine performance factors. In Study 1, analyses of the performance of a large number of subjects (n=1765) that performed the Vandenberg and Kuse (1976) mental rotation test (MRT) under standard conditions showed that the magnitude of the sex differences increases as subjects proceed through the sequence of problems, and that fewer females than males reach the last problems in a problem set. This supports the role of time constraints in sex differences on the MRT. Study 2 compared the magnitude of sex differences for subjects (n=212) who did the MRT under standard conditions (T1), and with double the time (T2) allowed for the test. No significant reduction in the magnitude of sex differences was observed-even though the overall scores under T2 increased markedly for both sexes. Study 3 examined the suggestion by that mental rotation differences arise because females spend more time than males in assuring that stimuli that do not match do indeed not match, with no sex differences for matching stimuli. This hypothesis was not supported for a sample of 20 males and 26 females. We conclude that performance factors may play a role in sex difference on mental rotation tasks, but do not account for all of the differences.     

Stimulus size matters: do life-sized stimuli induce stronger embodiment effects in mental rotation?

Against the background of the embodied cognition approach this experiment investigated the influence of motor expertise on object-based vs. egocentric transformations in a chronometric mental rotation (MR) task using images of either the own or another person’s body as stimulus material. The present study aimed to clarify two issues: (1) whether stimulus size (life size vs. small) is able to induce embodiment effects and (2) which role self-awareness processes play when using stimuli of the own body. The same design was conducted twice using both small stimuli (Study 1) and life-size human figures (Study 2). Using life-sized figures in Study 2 resulted in an explicit advantage of self-related stimuli and improved performance for motor experts compared to non-motor experts in both object-based and egocentric transformations. In conclusion, these results suggest that life-sized figures do indeed induce stronger embodiment effects in MR.     

Mental rotation performance in primary school age children: Are there gender differences in chronometric tests?

In contrast to the well documented male advantage in psychometric mental rotation tests, gender differences in chronometric experimental designs are still under dispute. Therefore, a systematic investigation of gender differences in mental rotation performance in primary-school children is presented in this paper. A chronometric mental rotation task was used to test 449 second and fourth graders. The children were tested in three separate groups each with different stimulus material (animal drawings, letters, or cube figures). The results show that chronometric mental rotation tasks with cube figures – even rotated in picture plane only – were too difficult for children in both age groups. Further analyses with animal drawings and letters as stimuli revealed an overall gender difference in response time (RT) favoring males, an increasing RT with increasing angular disparity for all children, and faster RTs for fourth graders compared to second graders. This is the first study which has shown consistent gender differences in chronometric mental rotation with primary school aged children regarding reaction time and accuracy while considering appropriate stimuli.     

Parental corporal punishment predicts behavior problems in early childhood.

Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (Research Triangle Institute, 2002), this study examined the impact of corporal punishment (CP) on children's behavior problems. Longitudinal analyses were specified that controlled for covarying contextual and parenting variables and that partialed child effects. The results indicate that parental CP uniquely contributes to negative behavioral adjustment in children at both 36 months and at 1st grade, with the effects at the earlier age more pronounced in children with difficult temperaments. Parents and mental health professionals who work to modify children's negative behavior should be aware of the unique impact that CP likely plays in triggering and maintaining children's behavior problems. Broad-based family policies that reduce the use of this parenting behavior would potentially increase children's mental health and decrease the incidence of children's behavior problems.     

自我和物体为参照系的心理旋转分离：内旋效应

采用虚拟的旋转不同角度左、右手模型,构建“左右手判断(Left and right hand judgment: LR)”任务和“相同－不同判断(same and different judgment: SD)”任务,考察这两种实验任务是否都存在内旋效应和角度效应,以此推论被试采用何种旋转策略。结果发现：（1） 两种实验任务结果均表现出显著的角度效应。（2）在LR任务条件下,存在显著的内旋效应,而在SD任务中不存在内旋效应。从而表明当人手图片作为心理旋转材料时,它具有双重角色。被试心理旋转加工时究竟选用何种参照系的旋转策略,与实验材料和实验任务两者都密不可分     

Spatial anxiety relates to spatial abilities as a function of working memory in children

Spatial ability is a strong predictor of students' pursuit of higher education in science and mathematics. However, very little is known about the affective factors that influence individual differences in spatial ability, particularly at a young age. We examine the role of spatial anxiety in young children's performance on a mental rotation task. We show that even at a young age, children report experiencing feelings of nervousness at the prospect of engaging in spatial activities. Moreover, we show that these feelings are associated with reduced mental rotation ability among students with high but not low working memory (WM). Interestingly, this WM?×?spatial anxiety interaction was only found among girls. We discuss these patterns of results in terms of the problem-solving strategies that boys versus girls use in solving mental rotation problems.     

Children's performance on a false-belief task is impaired by activation of an evolutionarily-canalized response system

We examine whether children's performance on a false-belief task is impaired by task content that activates an early-developing, prepotent motivational system: predator-avoidance. In two studies (N = 46 and N = 37), children aged 3-4 years completed variants of a false-belief task that involved predator-avoidance, playmate-avoidance, prey-seeking, and playmate-seeking, respectively. The proportion of correct answers on the playmate-avoidance task (Study 1: 52%; Study 2: 51%) was significantly greater than the proportion of correct answers on the analogous predator-avoidance task (Study 1: 28%; Study 2: 22%). This difference was not an artifact of children generally performing better on playmate stories than on predator-prey stories. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that activation of the predator-avoidance system generates prepotent response patterns that pre-empt full consideration of the mental states of the prey characters in false-belief stories.     

Hand mental rotation is not systematically altered by actual body position: Laterality judgment versus same–different comparison tasks

It is commonly believed that during mental rotation of body parts, participants tend to imagine their own body part moving toward the stimulus, thus using an egocentric strategy. Several studies have also shown that the mental rotation of hands is affected by the actual hand position, especially if the hand is kept in an awkward position. However, this hand posture effect, as well as the use of an egocentric strategy during mental rotation of body parts, is not systematic. Several experiments have demonstrated that manipulating the stimulus features or the paradigm could induce a shift to visual and allocentric strategies. Here, we studied the effects of hand posture and biomechanical constraints on one-hand mental rotation (laterality judgment task), two-hand mental rotation (same–different judgment task), and mental rotation of one or two alphanumeric symbols (control tasks). Effects of posture and biomechanical constraints were observed solely for the laterality judgment task. Response times in the same–different hand mental rotation items were influenced by the angular disparity between the stimuli. We interpreted our result as evidence of the use of different strategies for each task. Future research should focus on disentangling the exact subprocesses in which an egocentric strategy is used, in order to propose better tests for participants with motor impairments.     

Anatomical limitations in mental transformations of body parts

Two experiments investigated whether possible and impossible body postures influence mental rotation processes differently considering that anatomical limitations constrain the way in which subjects perform mental transformations of body parts. In Experiment 1, mental rotation was performed on two stimuli presented simultaneously. Both possible and impossible body postures elicited mental rotation, although the mental rotation rate was slower for impossible postures. In Experiment 2, only one stimulus was presented at a time and subjects decided whether it represented a correct body-part configuration or not. A typical mental rotation function was only present for correct body-part configurations. The results are discussed in terms of the familiarity of the stimuli. Unfamiliar stimuli (physically impossible) are rotated via local representations of their parts, whilst global representations are used for rotating familiar (anatomically correct) stimuli.     

Functional significance of stimulus orientation: effects on orientation discrimination.

Children (6- and 9-year-olds) and adults were required to discriminate identical pairs of visual stimuli from mirror images. It was hypothesized that a key factor in performance would be the extent to which orientation was a functionally significant attribute of the stimuli. Two variables were manipulated, type of orientation discrimination and stimulus class. The first variable refers to the fact that the mirror images could be produced by either left/right or top/bottom reversals. Three classes of stimuli, varying in the extent to which a particular orientation was emphasized, were used: mobile objects (for which left/right orientation is assumed to be important); stationary objects (which lack comparable relevance for left/right orientation); and novel, abstract forms. The prediction was that if the discrimination task involved left/right reversals, as contrasted with top/bottom reversals, subjects would show an advantage for mobile objects, producing an interaction between stimulus class and orientation discrimination. In the first study, the subjects were children and performance was measured in terms of error rates. In the second study adults were tested, and reaction times were measured. Both studies manifested the predicted interaction. Results are discussed in terms of an information-processing framework, in which the incorporation of orientation-related features in the code representing a stimulus varies with the functional significance of the orientation to the stimulus class.     

Children's performance in mental rotation tasks: orientation-free features flatten the slope

Studies of the development of mental rotation have yielded conflicting results, apparently because different mental rotation tasks draw on different cognitive abilities. Children may compare two stimuli at different orientations without mental rotation if the stimuli contain orientation-free features. Two groups of children (78 6-year-olds and 92 8-year-olds) participated in an experiment investigating development of the ability to mentally rotate and the ability to recognize and use orientation-free features. Children compared two stimuli, one upright and one rotated, and responded as quickly as possible indicating whether the stimuli were the same or different. The stimuli were either two panda bears or two ice-cream cones with three scoops of ice-cream of different colors. The panda bears were either identical or mirror images. The cones were either identical, mirror images, or non-mirror images. Response times increased linearly as a function of the angle of orientation when stimuli were the same and when the stimuli were mirror images. But response times were much less dependent on angle of orientation for non-mirror image stimuli. Children as young as 6 years recognized orientation-free stimulus features and responded without mentally rotating when the task permitted this strategy.     

Object-based and egocentric mental rotation performance in older adults: The importance of gender differences and motor ability

In this study, mental rotation performance was assessed in both an object-based task, human figures and letters as stimuli, and in an egocentric-based task, a human figure as a stimulus, in 60 older persons between 60 and 71 years old (30 women, 30 men). Additionally all participants completed three motor tests measuring balance and mobility. The results show that the reaction time was slower for letters than for both human figure tasks and the mental rotation speed was faster over all for egocentric mental rotation tasks. Gender differences were found in the accuracy measurement, favoring males, and were independent of stimulus type, kind of transformation, and angular disparity. Furthermore, a regression analysis showed that the accuracy rate for object-based transformations with body stimuli could be predicted by gender and balance ability. This study showed that the mental rotation performance in older adults depends on stimulus type, kind of transformation, and gender and that performance partially relates to motor ability.     

Mental rotation of tactual stimuli

Three experiments involving different angular orientations of tactual shapes were performed. In experiment 1 subjects were timed as they made 'same-different' judgments about two successive rotated shapes. Results showed that no rotation effect is obtained, i.e., reaction times and error percentage do not increase linearly with rotation angle. The same negative results were found in experiment 2, in which subjects were similarly timed while they made mirror-image discriminations. In experiment 3 a single-stimulus paradigm was used and subjects were asked to decide if a rotated stimulus was a 'normal' or 'reversed' version. Reaction times increased linearly with angular departure from the vertical. Therefore, for tactual stimuli too, this study confirms previous results, which suggest that a mental rotation strategy only occurs if it is facilitated by both type of task and type of stimulus. Results also show a significant difference between hands, and between hands and type of response. Implied hemispheric differences are discussed.     

Mental rotation of compound stimuli: The effects of task demands,practice, and figural goodness

Four experiments examined whether or not mental rotation of compound stimuli is a holistic process. Large letters (global aspect) composed of small letters (local aspect) were presented, and the format (normal vs. reflected) of each aspect was manipulated independently. In Experiment 1, the rate of mental rotation was compared under divided- and focused-attention instructions. The overall rate of mental rotation was faster under focused-attention instructions than under divided-attention instructions. Also, contrary to previous findings, in the divided-attention task, the slope of the rotation function was smaller when the stimulus configurations contained aspects with congruent formats (both aspects were normal or mirror-reversed letters) than when they contained aspects with incongruent formats (one normal and one mirror-reversed letter). This pattern of results is unlikely to be caused by the subjects' level of familiarity with the divided-attention task (Experiment 2), by postrotation processes (Experiment 3), or by stimulus attributes (figural goodness) confounded with the format-congruency variable (Experiment 4). The implications of these results for models of mental rotation of compound stimuli are discussed.