Mental Rotation of Dynamic, Three-Dimensional Stimuli by 3-Month-Old Infants

Abstract

Mental rotation involves transforming a mental image of an object so as to accurately predict how the object would look if it were rotated in space. This study examined mental rotation in male and female 3-month-olds, using the stimuli and paradigm developed by Moore & Johnson (2008). Infants were habituated to a video of a 3-dimensional object rotating back and forth through a 240° angle around the vertical axis. After habituation, infants were tested both with videos of the same object rotating through the previously unseen 120° angle, and with the mirror image of that display. Unlike females, who fixated the test displays for approximately equal durations, males spent significantly more time fixating the familiar object than the mirror-image object. Because familiarity preferences like this emerge when infants are relatively slow to process a habituation stimulus, the data support the interpretation that mental rotation of dynamic 3-dimensional stimuli is relatively difficult—but possible—for 3-month-old males. Interpretation of the sex differences observed in 3- and 5-month-olds’ performances is discussed.

Visuo-spatial ability in individuals with Down syndrome: Is it really a strength?

“…Possibly, the reason that mental rotation has not often been studied in DS is that it is a very complex spatial skill. Successful rotation strategies are not evident until 4-6 years in TD children (Estes, 1998; Frick, Daum, Walser, & Mast, 2009; Frick, Ferrara, & Newcombe, 2013), although the more basic ability of distinguishing between a figure and its mirror image is observed even in infants as indicated by measures of looking-time (Frick & Möhring, 2013; Moore & Johnson, 2011; Quinn, & Liben, 2008). In a typical mental rotation task the participant looks at an upright figure (e.g., a letter or a design) and then looks at the same figure rotated to different degrees.…”

Development of mental transformation abilities

“…In sharp contrast to research with preschoolers, recent research has shown that infants can discriminate mirror images despite differences in orientation [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. For example, in two such studies [14,15], infants saw an asymmetrical object being moved straight down behind an occluder.…”

“…In contrast, infant often see objects in actual physical rotation before the test [16,17,20,21,23,24], or in multiple static orientations [18,19]. This may allow infants to extrapolate motion or to interpolate between familiar views [28].…”

“…For instance, if we showed a child a figurine lying on a table and asked the child to stand it up, the child may identify the figurine's feet and then simply put it "on its feet". The child does not necessarily In line with biological explanations, some MR studies [16][17][18][19] showed a male advantage in infants as young as 3 to 10 months. However, a majority of studies with infants did not show sex differences [14,15,[20][21][22][23][24].…”

Infants’ ability to extract three-dimensional shape from coherent motion

“…In Experiment 1, both age groups showed a strong novelty preference on T1 and a strong familiarity preference on T2. Familiarity preferences are thought to reflect incomplete encoding of a visual stimulus and are typically observed when the stimulus is more complex or the task more demanding (Moore & Johnson, 2011; Rose, Gottfried, Melloy-Carminar, & Bridger, 1982). If infants are given more time to encode the stimulus, familiarity preferences are replaced by novelty preferences (Moore & Johnson, 2011; Roder, Bushnell, & Sasseville, 2000; Rose et al, 1982).…”