Document Type

Article - postprint

Program

Psychology (Pitzer)

Publication Date

8-2011

Keywords

Infants, Mental rotation, Sex differences

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 and Johnson (2008). Infants were habituated to a video of a three-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 three-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.

Comments

The content of this open-access post-print article is the same as that contained in the published article with the following reference:

Moore, D. S. & Johnson, S. P. (2011). Mental rotation of dynamic, three-dimensional stimuli by 3 month-old infants. Infancy, 16, 435 – 445.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2010.00058.x/abstract

Rights Information

© 2011 International Society on Infant Studies (ISIS)

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