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Rotation Task (rotation + task)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Psychology	37%
Life Sciences	37%

Kinds of Rotation Task

mental rotation task

Selected Abstracts

The effects of age and sex on mental rotation performance, verbal performance, and brain electrical activity

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOBIOLOGY, Issue 4 2002
Jonathan E. Roberts
Abstract This study examined the effects of age and sex on mental rotation performance, verbal performance, and brain-wave activity. Thirty-two 8-year-olds (16 boys) and 32 college students (16 men) had EEG recorded at baseline and while performing four computerized tasks: a two-dimensional (2D) gingerbread man mental rotation, a 2D alphanumeric mental rotation, of three-dimensional (3D) basketball player mental rotation, and lexical decision making. Additionally, participants completed a paper- and pencil water level task and an oral verbal fluency task. On the 2D alphanumeric and 3D basketball player mental rotation tasks, men performed better than boys, but the performance of women and girls did not differ. On the water level task, men performed better than women whereas there was no difference between boys and girls. No sex differences were found on the 2D gingerbread man mental rotation, lexical decision-making, and verbal fluency tasks. EEG analyses indicated that men exhibited left posterior temporal activation during the 2D alphanumeric task and that men and boys both exhibited greater left parietal activation than women and girls during the 2D gingerbread man task. On the 3D basketball player mental rotation task, all participants exhibited greater activation of the right parietal area than the left parietal area. These data give insight into the brain activity and cognitive development changes that occur between childhood and adulthood. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 40: 391,407, 2002. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/dev.10039 [source]

Motor processes in children's imagery: the case of mental rotation of hands

DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 5 2005
Marion Funk
In a mental rotation task, children 5 and 6 years of age and adults had to decide as quickly as possible if a photograph of a hand showed a left or a right limb. The visually presented hands were left and right hands in palm or in back view, presented in four different angles of rotation. Participants had to give their responses with their own hands either in a regular, palms-down posture or in an inverted, palms-up posture. For both children and adults, variation of the posture of their own hand had a significant effect. Reaction times were longer the more awkward it was to bring their own hand into the position shown in the stimulus photograph. These results, together with other converging evidence, strongly suggest that young children's kinetic imagery is guided by motor processes, even more so than adults'. [source]

Egocentric mental rotation in Hungarian dyslexic children

DYSLEXIA, Issue 1 2001
Kázmér Karádi
Abstract A mental rotation task was given to 27 dyslexic children (mean age 9 years, 2 months) and to 28 non-dyslexic children (mean age 8 years, 8 months). Pictures of right and left hands were shown at angles of 0, 50, 90 and 180 degrees, and the subjects were required to indicate whether what was shown was a right hand or a left hand. It was found that, in this task, the dyslexics did not show the normal pattern of response times at different angles, and also, that they made more errors than the controls. It is argued that this result is compatible with hypothesis that, in typical cases of dyslexia, there is a malfunctioning in the posterior parietal area. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Independent component analysis of erroneous and correct responses suggests online response control

HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 9 2010
Sven Hoffmann
Abstract After errors in reaction tasks, a sharp negative wave emerges in the event-related potential (ERP), the error (related) negativity (Ne or ERN). However, also after correct trials, an Ne-like wave is seen, called CRN or Nc, which is much smaller than the Ne. This study tested the hypothesis whether Ne and Nc reflect the same functional process, and whether this process is linked to online response control. For this purpose, independent component analysis (ICA) was utilized with the EEG data of two types of reaction tasks: a flanker task and a mental rotation task. To control for speed-accuracy effects, speed and accuracy instructions were balanced in a between subjects design. For both tasks ICA and dipole analysis revealed one component (Ne-IC) explaining most of the variance for the difference between correct and erroneous trials. The Ne-IC showed virtually the same features as the raw postresponse ERP, being larger for erroneous compared to correct trials and for the flanker than for the rotation task. In addition, it peaked earlier for corrected than for uncorrected errors. The results favor the hypothesis that Ne and Nc reflect the same process, which is modulated by response correctness and type of task. On the basis of the literature and the present results, we assume that this process induces online response control, which is much stronger in error than correct trials and with direct rather than indirect stimulus response mapping. Hum Brain Mapp, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Great apes track hidden objects after changes in the objects' position and in subject's orientation

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 4 2010
Anna Albiach-Serrano
Abstract Eight chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), five bonobos (Pan paniscus), five gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), and seven orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) were presented with two invisible object displacement tasks. In full view of the subject, a food item was hidden under one of three opaque cups resting on a platform and, after an experimental manipulation, the subject was allowed to select one of the cups. In the rotation task, the platform was rotated 180° while the subject remained stationary. In the translocation task, the platform remained stationary while the subject walked to the opposite side from where she saw the reward being hidden. The final position of the food relative to the subject was equivalent in both tasks. Single displacement trials consisted of only one manipulation, either a rotation or a translocation, whereas double displacement trials consisted of both a rotation and a translocation. We also included no displacement trials in which no displacements took place. No displacement trials were easier than single displacements which, in turn, were easier than double displacements. Unlike earlier studies with children, there was no difference in performance between rotation and translocation displacements. Overall, apes performed above chance in all conditions, but chimpanzees outperformed the other species. This study reinforces the notion that the great apes use an allocentric spatial coding. Am. J. Primatol. 72:349,359, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Block Design Performance in the Williams Syndrome Phenotype: A Problem with Mental Imagery?

THE JOURNAL OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY AND ALLIED DISCIPLINES, Issue 6 2001
Emily K. Farran
Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder which, among other characteristics, has a distinctive cognitive profile. Nonverbal abilities are generally poor in relation to verbal abilities, but also show varying levels of ability in relation to each other. Performance on block construction tasks represents arguably the weakest nonverbal ability in WS. In this study we examined two requirements of block construction tasks in 21 individuals with WS and 21 typically developing (TD) control individuals. The Squares tasks, a novel twodimensional block construction task, manipulated patterns by segmentation and perceptual cohesiveness to investigate the first factor, processing preference (local or global), and by obliqueness to examine the second factor, the ability to use mental imagery. These two factors were investigated directly by the Children's Embeded Figures Test (CEFT; Witkin, Oltman, Raskin, & Karp, 1971) and a mental rotation task respectively. Results showed that individuals with WS did not differ from the TD group in their processing style. However, the ability to use mental imagery was significantly poorer in the WS group than the TD group. This suggests that weak performance on the block construction tasks in WS may relate to an inability to use mental imagery. [source]