Rotation of Mental Images and its Effects on Reaction Time

There were nine participants in this study, five in the first group and four in the second group. The first group included Daina Berry, Justin Quintrell, Paige Govey, Natalie Campbell, and Jared Flannery, while the second group included Megan Powell, Kyle Sugonis, Abigail Mrozek, and Vanessa Landgrave. These participants are undergraduate students from Dr. Kelling’s 11:00AM Experimental Psychology course. The students partook in the study in order to receive a passing grade for the class assignment.

In terms of our experiment, consideration must be given to the constraints that could have possibly modified the outcomes. Independent Groups research design was employed to conduct this experiment and differences between participants may have affected the outcomes. For example, socio-economic background, age, differences in ability etc. (McLeod, S. 2007). Furthermore, the following of a correlational design where variables are measured and then analyzed to see a relationship (Gordon, Oakley), displays limited capacity to conclude causation. Therefore, even though we concluded that Males did better in the Mental Rotation task and Females did better in the Verbal

Participants were shown each of the cards (a) to (d) in set 2, in order, for three seconds each. Participants were then asked to write down what they saw in each of the pictures, but their responses are not recorded by the experimenter. The purpose of this was to develop a perceptual set for faces based on the participant’s immediate past experience with the four pictures of faces.

This study used pictures to test the memories of the test groups. There were twelve pictures in each group with the eleventh picture varied between different

Shepard and Metzler (1971) discovered that the time it took participants to judge whether two 3D rotated objects were identical increased with the amount of rotation. It was suggested that the participants mentally rotate the object to achieve the desired match. Participants had to rotate virtual pictures and figures mentally to determine whether they were the same or different while response time, accuracy and real-time rotation data were collected. It was hypothesised that response times were expected to increase dramatically up until 180 degrees, a decline in response times would be expected after 180 degree due to the object’s amount of rotation.

During the practice phase of the study, participants were trained on how to respond to our motion stimuli within the testing apparatus for this study. Participants viewed dot motion in one of eight directions and blindly keyed in the corresponding direction of motion on a number pad with arrows taped onto it. The direction of the dots changed for each trial and was randomized. This task served two purposes: the first was to train the participants to use the blindly use the directional pad during the task and the second was to check for any possible visual deficits that may interfere with the experiment. Participants had to complete 16 test items without getting more than 2 wrong in order to move on to the next part of the study. One participant was not able to reach this performance requirement even after explicit coaching, and therefore did not continue with the study and was replaced.

We worked with 50 research participants in our study. These participants were other students who attend Binghamton University, which is considered a convenience sample because it allows us to easily recruit participants for our study. For this reason, our participants will be young adults who are similar in age. These participants were recruited both in our Psychology class’ discussion section and outside of class by the experimenters.

The target population was high school students. To withdraw relatively equal sample of students from every grade level, eighteen freshmen and twenty-three sophomores from two English classes were chosen. The upper-class participants included twenty-six juniors and twenty-four seniors from two AP Psychology classes. In total, the sample size were 91 participants, with 42 female participants and 49 male participants.

If I had to design an experiment to test this hypothesis what I would do is I would take a group of 15 subjects and I would give them a verb describing the motion and I have them write it down their immediate thought and direction in motion. I would then run the experiment again, but this time I would give them more time to process the verb and then have them write their thoughts down. I would do this experiment because by doing so it would show how the time process affects the subject’s perception of motion of each verb.

The three experiments were very similar in design. In each experiments, subjects were presented with fictional articles summarizing different findings in cognitive neuroscience research. These articles were presented to the subjects of this study in one of three ways, including a brain scan, including a bar graph or including no brain scan or bar graph at all. In the

Farah’s experiments showed that visual mental imagery tasks activated areas of the brain responsible for vision and image processing, shown by large increases in blood flow. When participants were given tasks involving rotation of mental models, there was also activation in parts of the brain associated with motor skills (Farah, 1984). Hubbard determined that visual representations of objects can evoke associated auditory images, which prime the listener for later auditory perceptions. When participants were played sounds associated with displayed images, both primary and secondary areas associated with audio were activated, but when asked to imagine an associated sound, only the secondary area activated. The second association area also activates when there are silent gaps in music, suggesting that these areas of the brain are not limited to perception of stimuli, but also forming and transforming mental images related to those senses (Hubbard, 2010). These associations indicate that processes involving mental imagery do use image processing, and are not manipulated and converted into a linguistic language of thought as the descriptivist tradition

As well as this, they stated that the only information the participant holds about the character is whether or not it is in a forward of backwards orientation, and this is only possible if the participant uses the ‘mental rotation’ method. The results of Corballis et al’ experiment was that the latecy did not appear to be depended on the angular orientation, although this effect did appear to be largely confined to the backwards characters and it appeared to disappear with practice. This did not appear to be the case in Cooper and Shepards experiment as it was resistant to practice effects. Corballis et als experiment concludes that mental rotation is not entirely necessary for character recognition, it therefor states that individuals are able to notice the original orientation of a character regardless if it’s revearsed, thus not using the ability of mental rotation. These finding in turn challenge that of Cooper and Shepard (1975) as they believed that mental rotation was necessary in order to tell if the character is the original or reversed version. (Corballis et al, 1978). In the University experiment, participents aimed to replicate that of Cooper and Shepards

In addition, the mental rotation test has great relation to everyday life because we view similar objects shown in the mental rotation tests every day. All of these past studies either discuss gender differences and mental rotation but they all are deeply discussed in various ways. For instance, Shepard & Metzler (1971) had participants determine whether two dimensional stimuli were the same or different images. The reaction times increased as the angle of rotation within the shapes increased. The results suggested that it takes more time to rotate images in our mind. It also suggested that these images that were used are very similar to real images that we see every day as discussed

One particular innovative cue for figure-ground assignment is signified in the 2002 article written by Vecera, Vogel and Woodman; Lower Region: A New Cue for Figure-Ground Assignment. This article depicts that the regions in lower area of a stimulus assortment appear to be more figure-like than other areas in the upper portion of the selection. It was exhibited that the lower-region inclination way not prejudiced by difference such as,

Similarly, both theories are supported by research. Lawson and Humphreys (1996), for example, showed that recognition is affected more by tilt of major axis (foreshortening) than any other rotation, which endorses Marr’s and Nishihara prediction that establishing a central axis is crucial to the process of recognition. Warrington and Taylor (1978) reported that brain damaged patients could recognize objects presented in a typical view only. These patients found difficult to say if two photographs presented simultaneously were the same object when one image was a typical view and the other an unusual view. Although this could be explained as the patient’s inability to transform a 2D version of the atypical view into a 3D model, it could also be due to difficulty in establishing the central axis or due to some features of the object being hidden. In a later study, Humphreys and Riddoch (1984) used images where either the axis had been foreshortened through rotation or a critical feature was hidden. They found that patients had more problems recognizing the images with a foreshortened axis than the ones where a critical feature was hidden. Their