Real three-dimensional objects: effects on mental rotation

Protective effects of education on the cognitive decline in a mental rotation task using real models: a pilot study with middle and older aged adults

Mental rotation is the ability to rotate objects in one's mind. Large age-related decreases in accuracy and processing time are often found in studies using paper-and-pencil or computerized mental rotation tests. For older participants, these tests are often too difficult. In the present study, real models consisting of cube figures were used to assess the mental rotation performance of middle and older aged adults. It should be investigated whether these tests were comparable to paper-and-pencil or chronometric tests and if very old participants were able to solve them. Eighty-four participants (49 females) between 40 and 90 years took part and were divided into middle (40-68 years) and older aged (69-90 years) and groups with higher (with college degree) and lower education (without college degree). For accuracy, main effects of gender and age group as well as interactions of age group and education were found. Younger participants outperformed older ones only in the group with lower education. For processing time, a main effect of age group as well as an interaction of age group and education was found. The age-related cognitive decline in the higher educated group was moderate, while a large effect appeared for the group without college degree. Age and gender effects of our new test with real objects were comparable to paper-pencil and computerized tests. Furthermore, a protective effect of education on the cognitive decline in mental rotation performance is discussed.

One brick at a time: Building a developmental profile of spatial abilities

Spatial abilities are not only fundamental for activities of daily living, but they are also markers of academic and professional success. It has remained a challenge, however, to understand their development across childhood and adolescence, partly because of the lack of spatial tasks that are appropriate across age groups. For example, the well-established paper-based mental rotation test (MRT) has been shown to be too difficult for children. In the current study, we tested girls and boys in three age groups: younger children (5-8-years-old), older children (9-12), and adolescents (13-17) on a hands-on visuospatial task using toy bricks: the brick-building task (BBT). Children completed a low- and a high-mental rotation demand (LMR and HMR) version of the BBT and the paper-based MRT. Correlations were found between all tasks. Children, especially females, found the HMR more challenging than the LMR condition, but all children successfully completed the BBT. In contrast, the MRT was too difficult for the younger children to solve performing at chance. Given this result and that the BBT is a game-like, 3D, interactive task, the BBT could be used to examine the biological and/or environmental factors that affect the early development of visuospatial abilities.

An evaluation of visuospatial skills using hands-on tasks

Several tests of mental rotation ability have been used to investigate its development and the origins of sex differences. One of the most used tests is the mental rotation test (MRT) by Vandenberg and Kuse. A limitation of the MRT is that it is a pen-and-paper test with 2D images of 3D objects. This is a challenge to the ecological validity of the MRT because mental rotation typically involves physical 3D objects that are also physically manipulated. The purpose of the present study was to compare mental rotation ability as evaluated by the MRT to three new tasks with physical objects (toy bricks) that were physically manipulated. The different tasks allowed us to vary the processing demands on mental rotation while standardizing other aspects of the tasks. Fifty-nine females and twenty-eight males completed the LMR and HMR conditions (low- and high-mental rotation demands, respectively) of the brick building task (BBT), a visual search task, and the MRT. As demands on mental rotation for the BBT increased, performance decreased and a sex difference, with males outperforming females, increased. There were correlations between all tasks, but they were larger between the versions of the BBT with the MRT. The results suggest that spatial skill is an assembly of interrelated subskills and that the sex difference is sensitive to the demands on mental rotation and dimensionality crossing. The benefits of the BBT are that it is ecologically valid, avoids dimensionality crossing, and the demands on mental rotation can be manipulated.

Mental rotational ability is correlated with spatial but not verbal working memory performance and P300 amplitude in males

This study investigated how both sex and individual differences in a mental rotation test (MRT) influence performance on working memory (WM). To identify the neural substrate supporting these differences, brain electrical activity was measured using the event-related potential technique. No significant sex differences were observed in a test of verbal WM, however males were significantly faster than females to respond to probe stimuli in a test of spatial WM. This difference was no longer significant after controlling for differences in MRT score, suggesting that rotational ability mediates performance in the spatial memory task for both sexes. A posterior P300 was observed in both tasks as participants encoded information into memory, however the amplitude of the P300 correlated with RT in the spatial task but not in the verbal task. Individual differences in the MRT also correlated with RT and with the amplitude of the P300, but again only in the spatial task. After splitting the analysis by sex, partial correlations controlling for MRT revealed that for males, individual differences in rotational ability completely mediated the correlation between the P300 and RT in the spatial task. This mediating effect was not observed for the female participants. The results therefore suggest a relatively stronger association in males between innate mental rotational ability, spatial memory performance, and brain electrophysiological processes supporting spatial memory.