Sandra Kaltner

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

ABSTRACT 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.

Embodied mental rotation: a special link between egocentric transformation and the bodily self

This experiment investigated the influence of motor expertise on object-based versus egocentric transformations in a chronometric mental rotation task using images of either the own or another person’s body as stimulus material. According to the embodied cognition viewpoint, we hypothesized motor-experts to outperform non-motor experts specifically in the egocentric condition because of higher kinesthetic representation and motor simulations compared to object-based transformations. In line with this, we expected that images of the own body are solved faster than another person’s body stimuli. Results showed a benefit of motor expertise and representations of another person’s body, but only for the object-based transformation task. That is, this other-advantage diminishes in egocentric transformations. Since motor experts did not show any specific expertise in rotational movements, we concluded that using human bodies as stimulus material elicits embodied spatial transformations, which facilitates performance exclusively for egocentric transformations. Regarding stimulus material, the other-advantage ascribed to increased self-awareness-consciousness distracting attention-demanding resources, disappeared in the egocentric condition. This result may be due to the stronger link between the bodily self and motor representations compared to that emerging in object-based transformations.

Developmental Changes in Mental Rotation: A Dissociation Between Object-Based and Egocentric Transformations.

The present study was conducted to investigate developmental changes of mental rotation performance. We compared children, adults, and older adults regarding their performance in object-based and egocentric transformations. Both children and older adults showed higher overall reaction times compared to adults. Results were interpreted against the background of impaired working memory capacity in both children and older adults. Since mental changes in working memory are mediated by age differences in cognitive processing speed, cognitive speed is supposed to be the underlying factor. Regarding both types of transformations, an advantage of egocentric over object-based human figures was only found in adults which led us to tentatively propose that children and older adults show deficits in perspective taking compared to adults.

Emotion and affect in mental imagery: do fear and anxiety manipulate mental rotation performance?

Little is known about the effects of fear as a basic emotion on mental rotation (MR) performance. We expected that the emotional arousal evoked by fearful stimuli presented prior to each MR trial would enhance MR performance. Regarding the influence of anxiety, high anxious participants are supposed to show slower responses and higher error rates in this specific visuo-spatial ability. Furthermore, with respect to the embodied cognition viewpoint we wanted to investigate if the influence of fear on MR performance is the same for egocentric and object-based transformations. To investigate this, we presented either negative or neutral images prior to each MR trial. Participants were allocated to the specific emotion in a randomized order. Results show that fear enhances MR performance, expressed by a higher MR speed. Interestingly, this influence is dependent on the type of transformation: it is restricted to egocentric rotations. Both observation of emotional stimuli and egocentric strategies are associated with left hemisphere activation which could explain a stronger influence on this type of transformation during observation. Another possible notion is the conceptual link between visuo-spatial perspective taking and empathy based on the co-activation of parietal areas. Stronger responses in egocentric transformations could result from this specific link. Regarding the influence of anxiety, participants with high scores on the trait-anxiety scale showed poor results in both reaction time and MR speed. Findings of impoverished recruitment of prefrontal attentional control in patients with high scores in trait anxiety could be the explanation for this reduced performance.

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.

Approaching behavior reduces gender differences in the mental rotation performance

In this study, we investigated if the enactment of an approaching or avoiding behavior influences the mental rotation performance. Thirty-five females and thirty males completed a chronometric mental rotation task either in an approaching or in an avoiding condition while manipulating their arm position. The results showed a significant influence of this embodied behavior dependent on gender and task difficulty. The approaching condition caused no gender difference in reaction times and a reduced gender difference in accuracy for the most difficult tasks, while the avoidance condition produced the well-known gender differences in mental rotation for both reaction time and accuracy. We demonstrate that an approaching behavior improves the visual-spatial performance of females and gives a hint that the role of motivation must be investigated in more detail in further research.

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

ABSTRACT 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.

Neuronal correlates of mental rotation performance in children with developmental dyslexia

People with developmental dyslexia have been shown to have both behavioral and physiological differences when compared with healthy individuals, specifically when looking at the parietal cortex. Reading and writing deficits are well documented, but other cognitive deficits in dyslexia are not as well known. To investigate spatial deficits in children with developmental dyslexia we used a mental rotation test with three types of stimuli (letters, animals, and objects that look like letters) while simultaneously recording electroencephalographs. Behaviorally, it was found that dyslexic children took more time than nondyslexic children to solve the ‘letter’ and ‘object’ stimuli and that the dyslexic children had a slower mental rotation speed when solving ‘letter’ stimuli. The electroencephalographic data demonstrated more negative amplitude modulations for the dyslexic group in the left hemisphere at the time epochs: 200–300, 600–700, 700–800, 800–900, and 900–1000 ms and in the right hemisphere for the time epoch 600–700 and 900–100 ms. In addition, hemispheric group differences were found on the basis of stimuli for the time epoch 600–700 ms in which the processing of letters was lateralized to the left hemisphere for both groups, but the object stimuli was lateralized to the left for nondyslexic and to the right for dyslexic children. These differences support the idea that the behavioral differences found between dyslexic and nondyslexic children may be because of both differences in the early processing of the stimuli and perhaps in the mental rotation itself.

Sex of human stimulus matters: female and male stimuli are processed differently in mental rotation tasks

ABSTRACT The main goal of the present study was to assess whether the sex of a human stimulus affects mental rotation performance. The results are pretty straight-forward: Men show a better performance than women and also male stimuli result in a faster processing by both women and men compared to female stimuli. Furthermore, the advantage of egocentric transformations over object-based transformations disappeared for females in difficult tasks using female stimuli. This experiment gives a hint that women are affected to a greater extent from the sex of the presented stimuli compared to men. The underlying mechanisms need to be investigated in future research.

The association between obesity and mental rotation ability in an adolescent sample

Obesity has been related to deficient mental rotation performance. We assessed object-based and egocentric MR tasks in 19 obese and 19 normal-weight participants. Results showed slower response times of obese adolescents only for high angular disparities. This finding might emerge because of impairments in working memory, motor skills or perspective taking processes in obese youth.