Mental Rotation

Background

Shepard & Metzler (1971) showed that the time to judge whether two shapes are the same increases linearly with the angular difference between them. This was one of the most influential findings in cognitive psychology.

Mental Rotation as Analog Process

This linear relationship (~3–6 ms/degree for 2D shapes) suggests that people mentally rotate an internal representation of the shape, as if physically turning it. The farther a shape must be rotated, the longer it takes — just as it would take longer to physically rotate an object through a larger angle.

Analog Mental Representations

This was groundbreaking evidence for analog mental representations — the mind preserves spatial properties of objects. Rather than encoding shapes as abstract propositions or symbolic descriptions, we maintain internal images that behave like physical objects in space.

References

Shepard, R.N. & Metzler, J. (1971). Mental rotation of three-dimensional objects. Science, 171, 701–703.
Cooper, L.A. (1975). Mental rotation of random two-dimensional shapes. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 20–43.

Two shapes will appear side by side. One may be rotated.

Press F if the shapes are the SAME (just rotated), or press J if they are DIFFERENT (mirror image).

There are 80 trials total (~7 minutes). Respond as quickly and accurately as possible.

F = Same J = Different

Mental Rotation

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