Abstract
The ability to mentally rotate objects in space is a fundamental cognitive capacity. Previous studies showed that the time to rotate the image of a figure to match another increases progressively with angular disparity. It remains unclear whether this increase in response time with angular disparity could reflect increased processing operations or more cognitive effort instead of a sustained use of a ‘rotate’ mechanism without a change in workload. We collected response times as well as pupillary responses that index cognitive workload and activity in the brainstem’s locus coeruleus, from a sample of 38 young adults performing a chronometric mental rotations task. The results showed the expected increase in response times but no increase in pupil diameters between 60, 120, and 180 degrees of rotation, suggesting no significant changes in arousal levels when rotating figures near and far. This indicates that during mental rotation the load on cognitive resources remains constant irrespective of angular distance.
Highlights
A seminal article by Shepard and Metzler (1971) introduced the concept of mental rotation as well as a paradigmatic set of stimuli for testing this fundamental capacity of cognition: two-dimensional images of three-dimensional cube assemblies
We found evidence for no changes in pupil size with angular disparity, as confirmed by Bayesian analyses, though we observed the expected and highly replicated incremental effect in response times with increasing rotations
The eye pupils only showed a significant dilation between instances of no rotation and all rotated angles we tested, revealing that performing mental transformation taxes mental resources regardless of distance travelled in mental space
Summary
A seminal article by Shepard and Metzler (1971) introduced the concept of mental rotation as well as a paradigmatic set of stimuli for testing this fundamental capacity of cognition: two-dimensional images of three-dimensional cube assemblies. By monitoring incremental eye gaze shifts during the mental rotation of the ShepardMetzler figures, they concluded that the transformation process hap pens sequentially for different portions of the image (for more recent similar account: see Xue, Li, Quan, Lu, Yue & Zhang, 2017) This form of transformation would have the advantage of reducing the computa tional burden in contrast to a truly analogue, holistic rotation, where a parallel computation of the position of all or most of figures’ points is required. Rotating figures’ parts along longer paths, while holding information about other parts in working memory (Hyun & Luck, 2007), may render the rotation pro cessing progressively more effortful with angular distance, as proposed by Just, Carpenter and Miyake (2003) According to their theoretical account, larger angular disparities recruit more resources for computing the intermediate orientations as well as for maintaining on line the visual representations of the stimuli to compare. Such an account predicts incremental processing with added computations that should be mirrored by increases in cognitive workload
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