Abstract
We investigated sex differences in behavioral performance and cognitive load in chronometric mental rotation tasks with abstract and embodied figures. Eighty participants (44 females and 36 males) completed 126 items, which included cube figures, body postures, and human figures, which were all comparable in shape and color. Reaction time, accuracy, and cognitive load, measured by changes in pupil dilation, were analyzed. As a function of angular disparity, participants showed shorter reaction times and higher accuracy rates for embodied stimuli than cube figures. Changes in pupil dilation showed a similar pattern, indicating that mental rotation of embodied figures caused less cognitive load to solve the task. No sex differences appeared in any of the measurements.
Highlights
In everyday activities, spatial abilities play an important role, for instance, in navigation, natural sciences, and engineering
All graphs show a positive slope with increasing angular disparity
Model construction resulted in a model with random intercepts and slopes for stimulus type (STI) and DEG by participant
Summary
Spatial abilities play an important role, for instance, in navigation, natural sciences, and engineering. They are related to various abilities such as mathematical mathematical ability (Xie et al, 2019) or problem solving (Geary et al, 2000), among others. Two mental rotation tasks are often used: an object-based or egocentric mental rotation (Zacks et al, 2000). An existing assumption is that pictures of abstract or non-human objects, like cube figures, are processed with an object-based mental transformation. Human body or body parts pictures are assumed to be embodied, and to be processed with an egocentric perspective-based mental transformation (Zacks & Tversky, 2005)
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