Manual training of mental rotation

Abstract

In mental rotation tasks, reaction time increases linearly with increasing angular disparity (Shepard & Metzler, 1971). Extensive repetition of mental rotation has been shown to reduce reaction times (e.g., Tarr & Pinker, 1989). This training effect, however, seems to be based on the retrieval of memory representations rather than on a faster execution of the rotation process itself (e.g., Heil, Roesler, Link, & Bajric, 1998). The main purpose of the present experiments was to investigate whether mental rotation can be trained by a manual rotation task in a virtual environment. Since manual rotation does visualise the process of mental rotation and as mental rotation is assumed to be a covert motor rotation (Wexler, Kosslyn, & Berthoz, 1998), it should train the rotation process itself and thus should not be memory based. In Experiment 1, a new virtual mental rotation test was validated successfully. Experiment 2 shows that manual training of mental rotation in a virtual environment is effective but limited to trained objects.