Year-end Sale % OFF 
Abstract
The present experiment investigates whether patterns of shifts of feature locations could affect the same/different decisions of simultaneously presented pairs of geometrical figures. A shift of locations was defined as the angular distance from the location of a feature in one figure to the location of the same feature in another figure. It was hypothesized that the difficulty in discriminating mirror-reflected (or axisymmetric) pairs from disoriented identical pairs was caused by complex shifting patterns inherent in axisymmetric pairs. According to the shifts of the locations of the four structural features, five pair types were prepared. They could be ordered from completely identical to completely different in their shifts: identical 0/4 pairs, non-identical 1/4 pairs, non-identical 2/4 pairs = axisymmetric 2/4 pairs and non-identical 4/4 pairs. The latencies for non-identical pairs decreased with the increase of difference in the shifts of feature locations, indicating that serial, self-terminating comparisons of the shifts were applied to the discrimination of non-identical pairs from identical pairs. However, the longer latencies in axisymmetric 2/4 pairs than in non-identical 2/4 pairs suggested that the difficulty for axisymmetric pairs was not caused by the complex shifting patterns, and the difficulty was not satisfactorily explained by the comparisons of feature locations.
Highlights
A phenomenon called mental rotation is widely accepted as a means for the recognition of disoriented figures
In same/different decisions on pairs of figures with different orientations, the rate of mental rotation is typically expressed by a coefficient of latency and angular distance between the two figures of the same pairs
An analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the arcsine-transformed error rates showed that the effect of pair types was significant (F (4, 72) = 9.6, p < 0.001)
Summary
A phenomenon called mental rotation is widely accepted as a means for the recognition of disoriented figures In their famous study, Shepard and Metzler [1] asked participants to decide whether a presented pair of objects drawn on a picture at different portrayed orientations were the same or mirror-reflected. In same/different decisions on pairs of figures with different orientations, the rate of mental rotation is typically expressed by a coefficient of latency (in ms) and angular distance (in degrees) between the two figures of the same pairs. This coefficient is equivalent to the slope of a linear regression. Mental rotation is often assumed as a continuous and holistic process analogous to the physical rotation process of an object (viz., analog view on mental rotation; see [2]), and as its corollary, the rates of mental rotation should not be affected by the conceptual characteristics of stimuli, like their complexity [3]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
