Body analogy and sex differences in mental rotation

Abstract

Body analogy is an operation that links spatial cognition with the sensorimotor systems. Previous studies on mental rotation have shown that adding a head at the top of stimulus cubes or imitating human posture improves mental rotation performance results. On the other hand, mental rotation performance tends to be better in males than females. In this study, we tested sex differences in the effects of body analogy on a mental rotation task. The task was to judge whether the stimulus from a pair of cubes was the same or not; we added faces to the cubes or imitated human posture with cubes. The results revealed that body analogy was useful for both males and females but the effect was greater for females. However, additional correlation analyses indicated that this effect was at least partly due to the differences in abilities required for mental rotation, rather than sex differences. These results suggest that body analogy can compensate for weaknesses in spatial cognition.

Mental rotation of cubes with a snake face: The role of the human-body analogy revisited

“…According to Amorim et al (2006), embodying to-be-rotated objects helps people to perform mental rotation in a more holistic rather than piecemeal way, because the human body is regarded as a unit, not an abstract object, which improves mental rotation performance (see also Khooshabeh, Hegarty, & Shipley, 2013). Consistent with this, previous studies reported that women, who tend to use a piecemeal mental rotation strategy (Heil & Jansen-Osmann, 2008), showed larger body analogy effects than men (Doyle & Voyer, 2018;Makinae & Kasai, 2017;Makinae et al, 2015; but see Voyer & Jansen, 2016). More specifically, Amorim et al (2006) proposed two possible accounts of how the body analogy facilitates holistic mental rotation.…”

“…1). The human-like object was similar to those used by Makinae and Kasai (2017) and Makinae et al (2015). Then, we made mirror-reflected versions of the original four images.…”

“…Mental spatial transformations such as mental rotation (Shepard & Metzler, 1971) are closely linked to sensorimotor processing or embodied (e.g., Gardony, Taylor, & Brunyé, 2014;Muto, Matsushita, & Morikawa, 2018;Sekiyama, 1982;Wexler, Kosslyn, & Berthoz, 1998;Wohlschläger & Wohlschläger, 1998; for a review, Zacks & Michelon, 2005). Within a framework of embodied cognition, previous research has demonstrated repeatedly that the mental rotation of objects resembling human bodies was performed more quickly and with less errors than the mental rotation of abstract objects (a body analogy effect) using computer-based chronometric tasks (Amorim, Isableu, & Jarraya, 2006;Jansen, Lehmann, & Van Doren, 2012;Krüger, Amorim, & Ebersbach, 2014;Makinae & Kasai, 2017;Makinae, Yamazaki, & Kasai, 2015;Sayeki, 1981;Voyer & Jansen, 2016); moreover, similar effects were observed in studies using paper-and-pencil psychometric tests (e.g., Alexander & Evardone, 2008;Doyle & Voyer, 2018). The present study explores the underlying mechanisms of the body analogy effect during mental rotation.…”

“…Second, participants can utilize their own sensorimotor information by mentally emulating the observed posture of the 4 human-like object (called "motoric embodiment"). These accounts of spatial and motoric embodiment have been supported by a lack or even negative effects when rotating human-like objects with anatomically impossible postures, which had confusing body axes and were difficult to emulate (Amorim et al, 2006, Experiment 6;Krüger et al, 2014;Makinae & Kasai, 2017;Sayeki, 1981). Additionally, Amorim (2006, Experiment 5) found that performance did not improve when mentally rotating desk lamps, which were highly familiar and had an up-down axis.…”

“…However, previous investigations of motoric embodiment have been limited to showing that using impossible postures have a less facilitatory effect on mental rotation than possible postures (Amorim et al, 2006;Krüger et al, 2014;Makinae & Kasai, 2017;Sayeki, 1981) 1 . In other words, it remains unclear whether motoric embodiment facilitates the mental rotation of possible postures.…”