Rotations
Mental rotation is a function of visual representation in the brain. Effectively manipulating mental representations of objects allows people to make valid conclusions about what objects are and where they belong.
Get started for freeHow to take the Rotations Test
Two boxes appear on the screen, each filled with red and green squares. The patient must determine if the boxes would be identical if one of them could be rotated. More squares are added each time the patient answers correctly, increasing the difficulty.
The history of Rotations
The imaginary movement of objects in the brain has been studied since the 1970s, when pairs of geometric drawings would be presented to research participants. One finding was that response times got longer the more the objects were rotated in relation to each other. This suggests that people really do rotate the objects in their mind as if they were physical objects, with more rotation taking more time. This ability is crucial in real-world navigation, as becomes evident when people rotate maps to align them with their environment.
Rotations in
the real world
Performance on Rotations may be correlated to activities such as mentally holding a map of your environment in your mind, and rotating it to align yourself in it—this is an essential skill for various types of navigation.
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