The influence of physical activity, gender and frame of reference on mental rotation performance

Abstract

Mental Rotation (MR) is the ability to mentally rotate two- or three-dimensional objects (e.g.: Voyer et al., 1995). MR is a particular type of spatial ability (Linn and Petersen, 1985; Xue et al., 2017) and one of the key-aspects of human intellectual performance (Johnson and Bouchard, 2005). Different tasks were designed to realize neuroimaging studies of MR. This led to show possible involvement during MR of sensorimotor brain areas, also known to be involved in the preparation of a motor act (e.g.: Tomasino and Gremese, 2016; Zacks, 2008). Such results contributed to raise the question of the effect of physical activity on MR performance (e.g.: Jansen et al., 2012. Hoyek et al., 2014). In this framework the adopted frame of reference to perform MR (allocentric MR, Allo, vs egocentric MR, Ego. e.g.: Carpenter and Profitt, 2001) and gender (Jansen et al., 2012) were neglected factors. The aim of the present study was thus to examine MR performance with regards to thephysical activity practice of the subjects (dance / artistic gymnastics, futsal, sedentary people), the gender, the frame of reference to be used during MR (Allo, Ego), and the spatial plane (transverse, sagittal, and frontal planes) of the imagined rotation. The results showed a main effect of gender on MR performance. Males outperformed females as it was generally observed in the literature (e.g.: Voyers et al., 1995). Better MR performance was found in the transverse plane especially in Ego (as found by Carpenter and Profitt, 2001). In addition, an influence of the practiced sport was found, according the three spatial planes. Interestingly the results suggested that the influence of sport experience on MR performance is greater than that of gender.