Mental-Rotation Effect: A Function of Elementary Stimulus Discriminability?

Effects of stimulus complexity on mental rotation rate of polygons.

Both spatial and propositional theories of imagery predict that the rate at which mental images can be rotated is slower the more complex the stimulus. Four experiments (three published and one unpublished) testing that hypothesis found no effect of complexity on rotation rate. It is argued that despite continued methodological improvements, subjects in the conditions of greater complexity may ...

Applications of mental rotation figures of the Shepard and Metzler type and description of a mental rotation stimulus library.

The 3D cube figures used by Shepard and Metzler [Shepard, R. N., & Metzler, J. (1971). Mental rotation of three-dimensional objects. Science, 171, 701-703] have been applied in a broad range of studies on mental rotation. This note provides a brief background on these figures, their general use in cognitive psychology and their role in studying spatial behavior. In particular, it is pointed out...

Repetition benefit in mental rotation is independent of stimulus repetition

In this study, we investigated whether there is a repetition benefit in mental rotation that is independent of stimulus repetition (i.e., due to increased efficiency in postencoding processing). Three experiments were conducted, in which different conditions of stimulus repetition (different letters on consecutive trials in Experiment 1, letters of different orientations on consecutive trials i...

The effect of redundant stimulus elements on visual discrimination as a function of element heterogeneity, equal discriminability, and position uncertainty

Mental Rotation Mental Rotation

the typical characterization of individuals with mild mental retardation, by seldom being able to live independently. As evidenced by the example of Williams syndrome, summary test scores often do not represent well the level of ability within individual domains. Thus it is crucial to take into account etiology when planning either basic research or intervention. At the same time, it is importa...