Role of motor processes in extrinsically encoding mental transformations.

Previous research has shown that imagined perspective rotations elicit spatial and low-level cortical motor areas of the brain when participants rely on knowledge of their physical body, or body percept (Wraga, Flynn, Boyle, & Evans, 2010). The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate whether recruitment of the body percept would activate low-level cortical motor areas of the brain within other classes of mental transformations. Participants performed imagined object and perspective rotations of three-dimensional Shephard-Metzler (1971) stimuli.

Effects of a body-oriented response measure on the neural substrate of imagined perspective rotations.

Previous behavioral studies suggest that response measures related to the body, such as pointing, serve to anchor participants to their physical body during mental rotation tasks in which their perspective must be shifted elsewhere. This study investigated whether such measures engage spatial and low-level cortical motor areas of the brain more readily than non-body-related measures. We directly compared activation found in two imagined perspective rotation tasks, using responses that varied in the degree to which they emphasized the human body.

Neural basis of stereotype-induced shifts in women's mental rotation performance.

Recent negative focus on women's academic abilities has fueled disputes over gender disparities in the sciences. The controversy derives, in part, from women's relatively poorer performance in aptitude tests, many of which require skills of spatial reasoning. We used functional magnetic imaging to examine the neural structure underlying shifts in women's performance of a spatial reasoning task induced by positive and negative stereotypes.

Stereotype susceptibility narrows the gender gap in imagined self-rotation performance.

Three studies examined the impact of stereotype messages on men's and women's performance of a mental rotation task involving imagined self-rotations. Experiment 1 established baseline differences between men and women; women made 12% more errors than did men. Experiment 2 found that exposure to a positive stereotype message enhanced women's performance in comparison with that of another group of women who received neutral information.

Imagined rotations of self versus objects: an fMRI study.

This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying two types of spatial transformations: imagined object rotations and imagined rotations of the self about an object. Participants viewed depictions of single three-dimensional Shepard--Metzler objects situated within a sphere. A T-shaped prompt appeared outside of the sphere at different locations across trials.

Spatial updating of virtual displays during self- and display rotation.

In four experiments, we examined observers' ability to locate objects in virtual displays while rotating to new perspectives. In Experiment 1, participants updated the locations of previously seen landmarks in a display while rotating themselves to new views (viewer task) or while rotating the display itself (display task). Updating was faster and more accurate in the viewer task than in the display task.

Thinking outside the body: an advantage for spatial updating during imagined versus physical self-rotation.

Three studies examined effects of different response measures on spatial updating during self-rotation. In Experiment 1, participants located objects in an array with a pointer after physical self-rotation, imagined self-rotation, and a rotation condition in which they ignored superfluous sensorimotor signals. In line with previous research, updating performance was found to be superior in the physical self-rotation condition compared with the other 2.

Implicit transfer of motor strategies in mental rotation.

Recent research indicates that motor areas are activated in some types of mental rotation. Many of these studies have required participants to perform egocentric transformations of body parts or whole bodies; however, motor activation also has been found with nonbody objects when participants explicitly relate the objects to their hands. The current study used positron emission tomography (PET) to examine whether such egocentric motor strategies can be transferred implicitly from one type of mental rotation to another.