Inducing strategies to solve a mental rotation task is possible
Evidence from a sex-related eye-tracking analysis
Bibliographic Data
The study of spatial skills is gaining importance due to their relevance in everyday activities and their critical role in developing competencies across various academic disciplines. The main goal of this study was to explore whether mental rotation strategies, such as the so-called holistic -rotating an entire object- and piecemeal -rotating individual parts of the object- approaches, can be induced, and whether sex differences emerge during the process of strategy induction. This objective holds a pivotal role as it could lead to the enhancement of mental rotation abilities and the development of effective interventions. To achieve this, a mental rotation task was conducted while eye movements were recorded. In the first block, participants solved the task freely, while in the second block, they received instructions to solve it through either a holistic (42 participants) or a piecemeal (43 participants) strategy in a between-subjects design. In both strategies, participants showed better performance in the second block compared to the first. Males outperformed females. The holistic strategy resulted in faster reaction times in the second block. The number of fixations and saccadic movements decreased in the second block compared to the first for the holistic strategy, while the piecemeal strategy exhibited the opposite ocular pattern. These results indicate that effective mental rotation strategies were successfully elicited. No sex differences were found in the analyzed eye movement variables
Block (permutation group theory · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Eye movement · Eye tracking · Mental Rotation · Process (computing · Psychological intervention · Relevance (law · Rotation (mathematics · Saccadic masking · Task (project management · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Engineering · Geography Education and Pedagogy · Mathematics · Psychology · Spatial Cognition and Navigation · Visual and Cognitive Learning Processes
Spatial ability for STEM domains
Eye fixations and cognitive processes
Mental Rotation of Three-Dimensional Objects
A Redrawn Vandenberg and Kuse Mental Rotations Test - Different Versions and Factors That Affect Performance
Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1
Factors Influencing the Development of Mental-Rotation Ability The Role of Socio-Cultural Background
Sex differences in spatial ability and spatial activities
Performance as a Function of Ability, Resources Invested, and Strategy Used
Magnitude of sex differences in spatial abilities
Emergence and Characterization of Sex Differences in Spatial Ability
The malleability of spatial skills
| Citation velocity | historical |
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| Highly cited | No |