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

Abstract

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.

The use of embodied self-rotation for visual and spatial perspective-taking

“…That the most common and robust method for achieving both of these processes requires embodied mental self rotation, suggests that it may be difficulties with this embodied rotation, rather than with perspective-taking per se that is evidenced in developmental studies. There is much debate and conflicting evidence regarding children’s abilities in object rotation (Perrucci et al, 2008), even after the age they pass standard perspective-taking tasks. To our knowledge, however, there has been no systematic investigation of their abilities at mental self rotation.…”

Factors Influencing Mental-Rotation with Action-based Gender-Stereotyped Objects—The Role of Fine Motor Skills

“…Many studies have investigated the factors influencing performance of school-aged children in chronometric mental-rotation tests (for example Courbois 2000;Perrucci et al 2008). Before considering the influencing factors the nature of chronometric mental-rotation tests has to be described in more detail:…”

Mental Rotation of Viewpoint-Dependent/Independent Features in Children With Difficulty in Japanese Kanji Writing

“…To examine this possibility, it may be useful to consider the mental rotation task used in a previous study (Perrucci, Agnoli, & Albiero, 2008). Perrucci et al (2008) used ice-cream cones with three di erently colored scoops of ice cream (Fig. 1).…”

“…In Japan, it is necessary to determine the mechanism underlying reversal errors in Kanji for Japanese children with developmental dyslexia (in particular, for those who struggle with Kanji writing). To assess the mechanism underlying reversal errors in Kanji in terms of visual pattern recognition processes, we investigated visual perception; speci cally, we looked at viewpoint-dependent and viewpoint-independent processes in children with di culties in Japanese Kanji writing using the images from Perrucci et al (2008). On the basis of previous ndings (Lachmann et al, 2009;Lachmann & van Leeuwen, 2007), we predicted that children with difculty in Kanji writing would show no performance de cits in the identical condition because their abilities in mental rotation (viewpoint-dependent process) would be intact.…”