Question

Dr. Haviland is looking at mental rotation data but he forgot to label his chart. The data shows reaction times for 700 ms, 1400 ms and 1200 ms. What are the MOST likely corresponding degrees of rotation that will match his data?

90 degrees, 180 degrees, 120 degrees
90 degrees, 120 degrees, 180 degrees
180 degrees, 90 degrees, 120 degrees
120 degrees, 180 degrees, 90 degrees

Answer 1

The answer is: 90 degrees, 180 degrees, 120 degrees.

Explanation:

In 1971, at Stanford University, an experiment was carried out, in this experiment they presented the participants with pairs of three-dimensional figures with different orientations. The task that the participants had to do was to indicate if the two figures presented in each trial were identical or if it was a mirror image of each other.

As a result of this experiment it was seen that there was a positive relationship regarding the angle at which the figures were presented and the time it took for the subjects to answer. The higher the inclination of these images, the more difficult it was to indicate whether or not the figures were identical.

Based on these results, it was hypothesized that, when images are presented whose angle is not what is usually shown (90º, 120º, 180º ...), what we do mentally is to rotate the figure until we reach a degree of inclination that turn out "normal". Based on this, the more inclined the object is, the longer it takes to mentally rotate it.

The answer is: 90 degrees, 180 degrees, 120 degrees.

Answer 2

An important part of research into mental rotations (namely the field of neurology that studies how our brains perceive figures in 3-D or 2-D and how they decide whether 2 object have the same shape) in the early days regarded the speed of recognition; it was found out that there is an increasing function relating angle of rotation and speed of the observer. This means that the more the object was rotated from its initial position, the more time was needed to decide that it is the same shape. Hence, correct is the first choice, since the inequalities in time have to be satisfied by the angles (in that order).