LAPORAN PRAKTIKUM PSIKOLOGI KOGNITIF

(Mental Rotation)
LABORATORIUM PSIKOLOGI LANJUT

DISUSUN OLEH:

Nama : Alviona Trishokinah

NPM : 10520079
Kelas : 3PA18
Tutor : Ni Putu Gita Aprilia

FAKULTAS PSIKOLOGI
UNIVERSITAS GUNADARMA
2023
A. MATERI DAN TUJUAN PRAKTIKUM
1. Mental Rotation
Kemampuan rotasi mental (khususnya) adalah variabel penting untuk
dijelajahi ketika mempelajari CT siswa dan kinerja pemrograman
(Altun & Mazman,2015; Jones & Burnett, 2008)

2. Tujuan Praktikum
Tujuan dari praktikum ini guna melatih fokus dan daya ingat dari
individu terhadap stimulus yang sama yang di visualisasikan berbeda.

B. TINJAUAN PUSTAKA

Lowrie, Logan, & Ramful (2016) rotasi mental adalah proses

kognitif dimana siswa membayangkan bagaimana objek 2D dan 3D akan
muncul setelah diputar. Rotasi mental mencakup kemampuan
merotasikan suatu bangun secara tepat.

Sedangkan menurut (Smith,2005) proses rotasi mental sebagai

tindakan bersama yang melibatkan unsur-unsur ini menekankan peran
kunci persepsi dan proses motorik.

Rotasi mental dapat juga sebagai transformasi putar dari stimulus

visual yang memungkinkannya dipresentasi dalam orientasi baru (Searle
& Hamm, 2017).

Dari ketiga pengertian diatas dapat disimpulkan bahwa rotasi mental

adalah citra visual yang melibatkan gerakan melingkar yang dibayangkan
dari objek tertentu tentang kutub yang dibayangkan dalam ruang 2 atau 3
dimensi, dimana subjek secara mental merotasi gambar mereka dari objek
dengan cara analog sampai kedua objek cocok dengan orientasi mereka,
mereka menganggap gambar dua dimensi sebagai objek dalam ruang tiga
dimensi dan membayangkan rotasi di sekitar sumbu mana pun yang
diperlukan.
C. JURNAL (JUDUL JURNAL)

1. Judul Artikel : Mental Rotation

Perfomance in primary
school age children: Are
there gender differences in
Chronometric
2. Nama Jurnal, Volume, dan : Cognitive Development,
Tahun Vol. 28, Tahun 2013
3. Penulis : P. Jansen, A. Schmelter, C.
Quaiser-Pohl, S.
Neuburger, M. Heil
4. Tujuan dan Metode Penelitian : Tujuan penelitian ini
adalah untuk menyelidiki
perbedaan gender yang ada
pada anak usia sekolah
menggunakan tes
kronometrik dan untuk
menilai seberapa tepat
rangsangan yang berbeda
untuk kelompok usia ini.
Penelitian ini
menggunakan pendekatan
kualitatif dengan metode
studi kasus.
5. Subjek Penelitian : Partisipan dalam penelitian
ini terdiri dari 449 anak
sekolah dasar (228 siswa
kelas dua, 221 siswa kelas
empat) dari sekolah di
wilayah Bonn, Jerman
Barat. Semua orang tua
memberikan persetujuan
tertulis dan terinformasi.
Status sosial ekonomi
diukur dengan kuesioner
berdasarkan ukuran yang
disediakan olehJockel dkk.
(1998).
6. Review : studi pertama yang
menyelidiki pengaruh
kelas, jenis kelamin, dan
tipe stimulus, dan
kemungkinan interaksinya,
pada kinerja rotasi mental
kronometrik anak sekolah
dasar. Sebelumnya unsur-
unsur tersebut hanya
 dieksplorasi dalam tes
psikometri. Hipotesis
pertama tentang perbedaan
jenis kelamin hanya dapat
dikonfirmasi sebagian:
dengan gambar binatang
anak laki-laki memiliki
tingkat akurasi yang lebih
tinggi. Kedua, terlihat
bahwa anak laki-laki lebih
cepat daripada anak
perempuan di semua sudut
rotasi, dan siswa kelas
empat lebih cepat daripada
siswa kelas dua. Selain itu,
hasil menunjukkan bahwa
sebagian besar anak di
kelas 2 dan kelas 4
mengalami kesulitan yang
cukup besar untuk
menyelesaikan tes rotasi
mental kronometrik dengan
bentuk kubus yang diputar
pada bidang gambar.

D. PERCOBAAN PRAKTIKUM
1. Langkah-langkah Percobaan
a. Buka link https://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-library/
b. Pada sisi kiri web tersebut, klik “List of Experiments
(alphabetical)”.
c. Lalu pilih “Mental Rotation”
d. Lalu di sisi kiri, klik “Run the demo”
e. Lalu akan muncul gambar kotak berwarna merah dan klik gambar
tersebut.
f. Baca instruksi tes tersebut
g. Kita akan melihat tiga objek pada layar, lalu kita diminta untuk
memilih gambar mana yang paling tepat dan cocok dengan gambar
yang berada diatas (gambar berwarna abu-abu). Jika sudah
memilih, lalu kita diminta untuk klik gambar yang menurut kita
benar
h. Jika sudah memilih gambar yang menurut kita benar tekan spasi
 untuk melanjutkan soal
i. Setelah selesai tes akan muncul hasil dari tes kita
j. Lalu screencapture hasil tes kita
k. Setelah itu tekan lagi spasi
l. Dan dipojok kiri bawah terdapat tulisan show data
m. Klik tulisan tersebut, lalu akan muncul hasil tes berbentuk data
n. Setelah muncul screencapture kembali data tersebut
o. Setelah itu buat laporan dan masukkan hasil dari screencapture
tersebut

E. HASIL DAN PEMBAHASAN

1. Hasil
Setelah melakukan uji coba untuk tujuan praktis, ada materi yang relevan,
yaitu hasil yang dilakukan oleh praktisi dari Mental Rotation.

Gambar 1. Selesai percobaan Mental Rotation

 Gambar 2. Hasil Tabel Data Mental Rotation
2. Pembahasan
Berdasarkan teori mental rotation dikaitkan dengan hasil praktikum
dinyatakan bahwa benar rotasi mental adalah kemampuan komputasi secara
kompleks bagaimana otak kita memutar dan membayangkan gambar atau
objek yang masuk melalui rangsangan visual atau gambar yang sudah
terekam diotak seperti pada praktikum mental rotation task yang sudah
dilakukan praktikkan menangkap gambar yang diberikan kemudia mencari
kecocokkan dengan gambar yang disediakan dengan posisi dan arah yang
berbeda dengan gambar awal.
Kemudian berdasarkan jurnal terkait praktikum ini dapat dilihat bahwa
mental rotation merupakan prinsip dasar kognitif dalam pemetaan yang
dapat berupa numerik atau objek lainnya. Dalam jurnal ini dikatakan bahwa
untuk memetakan angka individu harus memiliki kemampuan special yang
baik.

F. KESIMPULAN
Berdasarkan hasil praktikum yang dilakukan dapat disimpulkan
bahwa mental rotation adalah Kemampuan yang meliputi kemampuan
seseorang untuk mngidentifikasi suatu objek dan unsur-unsur yang telah
dimanipulasi posisinya. Juga mencakup kemampuan merotasikan suatu bangun
ruang dan membayangkan perputaran bangun ruang secara cepat dan tepat.
.
 DAFTAR PUSTAKA

Akbar, Khairul. (2021). Jurnal Didaktika Pendidikan Dasar, Eksplorasi Penalaran

Spasial pada Konstruk Rotasi Mental dengan Media Google Sketchup, 5(1),
143-164.
https://ojsdikdas.kemdikbud.go.id/index.php/didaktika/article/view/203
Aini, N., & Suryowati, E. (2022). Mosharafa: Jurnal Pendidikan Matematika,
Mengeksplor Penalaran Spasial Siswa dalam Menyelesaikan Soal Geometri
Berdasarkan Gender, 11(1), 61-72.
https://karya.brin.go.id/id/eprint/15660/1/Jurnal_Nurul%20Aini_STKIP%
20PGRI%20Jombang_2022.pdf
Jansen, P et all. (2013). Cognitive Development, Mental rotation performance in
primary school age children: Are there gender differences in chronometric
tests?, 28(1), 51-62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2012.08.005

Cittaa, G et all. (2019). The effects of mental rotation on computational thinking.

Computers & Education. Vol 141.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103613
LAMPIRAN
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 Author's personal copy

Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Cognitive Development

Mental rotation performance in primary school age

children: Are there gender differences in chronometric
tests?
P. Jansena,∗, A. Schmeltera, C. Quaiser-Pohlb, S. Neuburgerb, M. Heilc
a
Universität Regensburg, Institute of Sport Science, Regensburg, Germany
b
Universität Koblenz, Institute of Psychology, Koblenz, Germany
c
Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Institute of Experimental Psychology, Düsseldorf, Germany

A r t I c l e I n f O A b s t r A c t

Keywords: In contrast to the well documented male advantage in psychometric

Mental rotation mental rotation tests, gender differences in chronometric exper-
Pre-adolescence imental designs are still under dispute. Therefore, a systematic
Gender differences
investigation of gender differences in mental rotation performance
Stimulus type
in primary-school children is presented in this paper. A chrono-
metric mental rotation task was used to test 449 second and fourth
graders. The children were tested in three separate groups each
with different stimulus material (animal drawings, letters, or cube
figures). The results show that chronometric mental rotation tasks
with cube figures – even rotated in picture plane only – were too dif-
ficult for children in both age groups. Further analyses with animal
drawings and letters as stimuli revealed an overall gender differ-
ence in response time (RT) favoring males, an increasing RT with
increasing angular disparity for all children, and faster RTs for fourth
graders compared to second graders. This is the first study which
has shown consistent gender differences in chronometric mental
rotation with primary school aged children regarding reaction time
and accuracy while considering appropriate stimuli.
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

∗ Corresponding author at: Institute of Sport Science, Universitätsstr. 31, 93053 Regensburg, Germany.
Tel.: +49 941 943 2518; fax: +49 941 943 4490.
E-mail address: petra.jansen@psk.uni-regensburg.de (P. Jansen).

0885-2014/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2012.08.005
 Author's personal copy

52 P. Jansen et al. / Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62

1. Introduction

Mental rotation is the ability to rotate two- or three-dimensional stimuli in the mind (Shepard &
Metzler, 1971). The main goal of this study is to investigate gender differences in the chronometric
mental rotation performance of school age children when using different types of stimuli. This is a
combination of topics which has not been systematically investigated until now.

1.1. Mental rotation performance measured with psychometric and chronometric tests in children

Psychometric mental rotation tests, where participants have to solve time-limited mental rota-
tion tasks on a paper sheet, can be used to test children as young as 5 years old (Quaiser-Pohl, Rohe, &
Amberger, 2010) when using age appropriate stimuli (Quaiser-Pohl, 2003). With the most widely used
paper–pencil mental rotation test, the MRT (Peters et al., 1995; Vandenberg & Kuse, 1978), psycho-
metric mental rotation performance can be reliably measured in primary school-aged children (9–11
years) (Titze, Jansen, & Heil, 2010). In the MRT, each of the 24 items consists of one target on the left
side and four comparison items on the right side. Two of the four comparisons are “correct” (identical
to the left item) and two are “incorrect”. Participants must choose both of the correct stimuli within
a time limit of three minutes for 12 items. Accuracy is measured.
In addition to psychometric tests there are chronometric mental rotation tests. In these tests, par-
ticipants sit in front of a computer screen and are shown pairs of mental rotation objects. They must
decide as fast and as accurately as possible if the objects are the same or are mirror images of each
other by pressing a key. Accuracy and reaction time are measured. It has been demonstrated that
children are able to solve chronometric mental rotation tasks even before entering school. Marmor
(1975) showed that 5-year-old children can mentally rotate two-dimensional figures in the picture
plane. However, they were twice as slow as 8-year-old children. These results were confirmed in other
studies (e.g. Kosslyn, Margolis, Barrett, & Goldknopf, 1990), but they are also still controversially dis-
cussed (Newcombe, 2002). Results from additional studies have revealed a high individual variability
and some studies have failed to replicate Marmor’s result (compare Newcombe & Frick, 2010). Kail,
Pellegrino, and Carter (1980) investigated the development of mental rotation performance after the
age of eight. They found a linear mental-rotation function using alphanumeric and abstract symbols
and showed that mental-rotation speed nearly doubled from 8 years old to adulthood. Concerning
the influence of stimulus type, Courbois (2000) showed that the ability to rotate unfamiliar stimuli
with no salient axis improves from five to 8 years of age. Furthermore, Perrucci, Agnoli, and Albiero
(2008) demonstrated that children at the age of 6 years old are already able to compare two stimuli
at different orientations dependent on orientation-free features, such as the color of some part of the
stimuli. In this case they are able to respond without using mental rotation.

1.2. The importance of gender differences in children measured with psychometric and chronometric
tests

Gender differences in mental-rotation tasks are widely discussed and well investigated in psy-
chometric, paper–pencil tests (Peters & Battista, 2008). Using psychometric tests with three different
stimulus conditions (animal pictures, letters, and cube figures) it was shown that fourth graders, but
not second graders, showed a small, significant, stimulus-independent gender difference favoring
males (Neuburger, Jansen, Heil, & Quaiser-Pohl, 2011). This is in line with another study showing a
large gender difference favoring males only in older (mean age: 10.3 years) but not in younger fourth
graders (mean age: 9.3 years) (Titze et al., 2010). These gender differences are often discussed on
a psycho-social or biological–neuronal basis. Psycho-social theories often argue that gender differ-
ences are based on the influence of attitudes or stereotypes (Moè & Pazzaglia, 2006; Steele, 1997)
or on different experiences based on gender. For example, Levine, Ratliff, Huttenlocher, and Cannon
2012) showed that the quality, but not the frequency, of puzzle play was higher for boys than for girls
(between 2 and 4 years old) and that this variation predicts performance on spatial transformation
tasks. Biological theories stress the importance of brain organization and hormonal (organizational
and activational) influences. Both psycho-social and biological approaches are empirically supported
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P. Jansen et al. / Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62 53

and their factors seem to interact in a complex way (Casey, Colon, & Goris, 1992). Furthermore, espe-
cially with children, task attributes in the mental rotation task itself also play an important role in
mental rotation performance (e.g. Courbois, 2000; Perrucci et al., 2008).
Gender differences in chronometric mental-rotation tasks have been investigated more thoroughly
in adulthood than in childhood. Seven (5 with children under 14 years old) of the 15 chronometric
studies in the meta-analysis of Voyer, Voyer, and Bryden (1995) showed no gender differences at all,
resulting in a small to medium overall effect size (d = .37). However, studies are difficult to compare
because they vary with respect to stimulus types, sample sizes, and the analyzed variables of informa-
tion processing. In a systematic study with a total of N = 360 adult participants, Jansen-Osmann and
Heil (2007a) demonstrated that only polygons, but not characters, animal drawings, PMA symbols (2D
geometric objects from the Primary Mental Ability Battery, Thurstone, 1958), or cube figures, produced
a substantial and reliable gender difference in mental-rotation speed. This suggests that the finding of
a male advantage in psychometric tests cannot automatically be generalized to chronometric mental-
rotation tasks. Studies concerning gender differences with children using chronometric tests are rare.
Krüger and Krist (2009) used pictures of body parts as stimuli material and found an unexpected gen-
der difference: kindergartner’s boys made more errors than girls. In another study, Heil and Jansen
(2010) investigated gender differences in both psychometric and chronometric mental rotation tests
and in a standardized math test for 7–8-year-old children (47 girls, and 62 boys). Gender differences
favoring boys were only found in accuracy measurements (psychometric mental rotation test, math
test, and error rate of the chronometric test).

1.3. Goal of this study

Regarding the use of chronometric mental rotation tests, a systematic investigation regarding gen-
der difference, as it was presented for adults (Jansen-Osmann & Heil, 2007b), is missing for school
age children. The main goal of this study is to investigate the gender differences present in school age
children using a chronometric test and to assess how appropriate different stimuli are for this age
group. According to the study of Heil and Jansen (2010) a gender difference in a chronometric mental
rotation test using animal drawings is anticipated for accuracy measurements. The study presented
here will add to their findings because we are additionally investigating the influence of different
types of stimuli and different age groups on chronometric mental rotation performance.
The study presented here will add to their findings because we are additionally investigating the
influence of different types of stimuli and different age groups on chronometric mental rotation
performance. Additionally, general intelligence and socioeconomic status were controlled, because
socioeconomic status has been shown to modify gender differences in spatial tasks (Levine, Vasilyeva,
Lourenco, Newcombe, & Huttenlocher, 2005).
Because cube figures are more difficult to process than animal drawings or letters, indicated by
longer reaction times (e.g. Jansen-Osmann & Heil, 2007a), we expected a larger gender difference
for the cube figures. Furthermore, we expected a better mental rotation performance from fourth
graders compared to second graders due to an increase in general processing speed (e.g. Kail, 1993)
and rotation rate (Kail et al., 1980) with age.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

The participants in this study consisted of 449 elementary-school children (228 second graders,
221 fourth graders) from schools in the area of Bonn, Western Germany. All parents gave their written,
informed consent. The sample included children from families with low (13.4%), middle (14.3%), high
(17.2%), and very high (48.7%) socio-economic status (SES). 6.4% did not complete the SES question-
naire. The socioeconomic status was measured by a questionnaire based on the measure provided
by Jöckel et al. (1998). In this questionnaire, parents of the participants were asked to indicate their
school leaving certificate and professional degree. Following Jöckel et al. (1998), rank-ordered values
were assigned to the different combinations of graduation levels.
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54 P. Jansen et al. / Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62

To ensure that we only used data from children that did attempt to solve the mental rotation test
as instructed, we excluded the data of children whose error rates in at least one of the experimental
conditions exceeded 90%. This resulted in the exclusion of 19 children, 12 boys (9 second graders) and
7 girls (6 second graders. From the remaining 430 children, 212 children were second graders (mean
age: 7.94 years, SD = .5, range: 6.83–9.92 years), and 218 were fourth graders (mean age: 10.06, years,
SD = .54, range: 8.25–12.17 years). Each child received little presents (value: .5D ) for participation.
Additionally, participating classes were given 4D per child for the class treasury. Non-parametric
statistics (Mann–Whitney U-test) showed that the SES did not differ between boys and girls (p = .53),
second and fourth graders (p = .67), or the three stimulus condition groups (p = .67). Because of this,
we could exclude that possible gender differences are modified by the socioeconomic status.
Each child was tested in one of the three stimulus types (animal drawings, letters, or cube figures).
The following numbers of children were analyzed in the different stimulus types: “animal drawings”:
60 second graders (32 girls and 28 boys) and 67 fourth graders (31 girls and 36 boys); “letters”: 85
second graders (48 girls and 37 boys) and 77 fourth graders (39 boys and 38 girls); “cube figures”: 67
second graders (34 girls and 33 boys) and 74 fourth graders (37 boys and 37 girls).

2.2. Material

The three stimulus conditions were completely equivalent besides the stimuli used. The “animal
drawings” condition consisted of colored drawings of 20 different animals (bear, camel, raccoon, cow,
crocodile, dog, donkey, elephant, goat, grizzly bear, horse, leopard, lion, monkey, pig, rhino, sheep,
tiger, turtle, and zebra, respectively, from Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980)). The “letters” condition
consisted of 15 alphanumeric letters (e, F, g (twice but different fonts), j, k (twice but different fonts),
L, l, n (twice but different fonts), P, q (three times but different fonts) R, r, s, S, z). In condition 3, we
used “cube figures” similar to those by Shepard and Metzler (1971). An example of each stimulus type
is given in Fig. 1.
In order to parallelize task demands for all three stimuli types and to avoid floor effects in second-
grade participants, we only used picture-plane rotations for the cube figures. Each stimulus had a
maximal size of 7 by 7 cm on the screen with a space of 14 cm in between. The children were free
to choose the most comfortable viewing distance. In each stimulus condition, the right stimulus was
either identical to the left or mirror-reversed. The left stimulus was always presented upright. The
angular disparity between the two stimuli was 45◦, 90◦, or 135◦ (clockwise or counter clockwise).
With “animal drawings” and “letters” as stimuli each child had to complete 240 trials each. Because
mental rotation with cube figures as the stimulus material was supposed to be much more difficult,
each child only had to complete 120 trials to avoid overstraining the participants. After 20 trials a
short break was administered in all stimuli conditions. The experiment was run on a laptop with a 15′′
monitor and lasted approximately 1 h.
General cognitive abilities were controlled by administering the subtest “Reasoning” of the
“Cognitive-Ability Test” (KFT 1–3, Heller & Geisler, 1983). This test consists of 15 items, which are
made up of five pictures, respectively. Four of the five pictures belong to the same category (e.g. veg-
etable). The picture that does not fit into this category has to be detected and marked by the child. There
is no time constraint. The test was chosen because it measures general non-verbal cognitive abilities,
and because performance in this test does not depend on visual-spatial abilities. Furthermore, it can
be administered in groups.

2.3. Procedure

Children were tested in a quiet room during regular school time in groups of two to five children.
The children were separated in this room so that every child was able to solve the tasks individually on
a laptop. After a short introduction, children were given the KFT subtest. Since the KFT is a power test,
there was no temporal constraint. When all children had finished with the KFT, the mental rotation
task started. Each session was preceded by 40 unrecorded practice trials. Children were allowed to
choose their own pace by pressing a key when they wanted to start the next run of 20 trials. Each
trial started with the presentation of a 500 ms background gray screen. After this, the stimuli pair
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P. Jansen et al. / Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62 55

Fig. 1. Sample items of the mental rotations tasks (animal drawings, letters, and cube figures).

was presented. Children had to decide as fast as possible if the stimuli were the “same” or “different”
(mirror reversed). They were instructed to press the green marked mouse button when the stimuli
were the “same” and the red marked mouse button when the stimuli were “different”. For pressing
the key they were allowed to choose which finger to respond with. The children received feedback in
the form of a “+” for correct responses and a “−” for incorrect responses only in the 40 training trials.
Both feedbacks appeared for 500 ms in the center of the screen. The next trial began after 1500 ms. No
feedback was given in the non-training trials.

3. Results

For the statistical analysis of response time (RT), only trials with correct responses were used. RTs
more than 2 SDs above or below the mean per condition and per participant were excluded, resulting
in the exclusion of a total of 6.2% of the data. Analyses with untrimmed data revealed identical results.
For all analyses clockwise and counter clockwise angular disparities were averaged.

3.1. Reasoning score

Reasoning ability was defined as the number of correctly answered items in the KFT subtest and
transformed into age-corrected standard values. An ANOVA with the KFT-score as a dependent variable
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56 P. Jansen et al. / Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62

and the between subject factors “grade” (grade 2 vs. grade 4), “gender” (boys vs. girls), and “stimulus
type” (animal drawings vs. letters vs. cube figures) was conducted.
There were significant effects of the factors “gender”, F(1,418) = 13.60, p < .001, щ2 = .03, and
“grade”, F(1,418) = 35.02, p < .001, щ2 = .08, but no significant main effect of the factor “stimulus type”,
(F(2,418) = 2.05, n.s. The children in the 2nd grade (M = 47.34, SE = .64) had a lower score than the chil-
dren in the 4th grade (M = 52.68, SE = .63), and boys (M = 48.34, SE = .64) had a lower score than girls
(M = 51.67, SE = .63). The interaction between both factors, F(1,418) = 3.76, p = .053, щ2 = .01, did not
reach significance. In the 2nd grade, girls (M = 49.29, SE = .90) had a higher score than boys (M = 44.85,
SE = .99), F(1,210) = 13.50, p < .001, щ2 = .06. The score did not differ between girls (M = 53.59, SE = .87)
and boys (M = 51.91, SE = .81) in the 4th grade, F(1,216) = 2.01, n.s. The KFT-score was considered as a
covariate in the following analyses.

3.2. Accuracy score

An error measurement was calculated for each participant. In reference to memory research
(Snodgrass & Corwin, 1988), the PR-score (which is the abbreviation for the discrimination index
according to Snodgrass and Corwin (1988)) was calculated for each angular disparity (45◦, 90◦, 135◦).
The PR score is defined as the difference between the hits percentage (percentage of “same” responses
for trials where “same” was the correct response) and the false alarm percentage (percentage of “same”
responses for trials where “same” was the incorrect response). This measurement allows for the cor-
rection of guessing by chance and of guessing by always pressing the same button. An ANCOVA was
conducted covarying the KFT score with the dependent measure “PR-score”, the within subject factor
“angular disparity” (45◦, 90◦, 135◦), and the between subject factors “stimulus type” (animal drawings
vs. letters vs. cube figures), “gender” (boys vs. girls), and “grade” (grade 2 vs. grade 4). The signif -
icance levels were corrected according to Huynh and Feldt (1976) in order to compensate for the non-
sphericity of the data.
The ANCOVA revealed a significant main effect for four factors: “angular disparity“, F(2, 834) = 5.28,
p < .01, щ2 = .01; “grade”, F(1,417) = 14.24, p < .001, щ2 = .03; “gender”, F(1,417) = 11.52, p < .01, щ2 = .03;
and “stimulus type”, F(2,417) = 150.27, p < .001, щ2 = .42. Furthermore, there was a significant inter-
action between the factors “grade” and “stimulus type”, F(2,417) = 7.37, p < .01, щ2 = .03, between the
factors “angular disparity” and “stimulus type”, F(4,834) = 3.60, p < .05, щ2 = .02, and a three-way inter-
action between “angular disparity”, “stimulus type”, and “gender”, F(4,834) = 3.63, p < .05, щ2 = .02 (see
Fig. 2a and b).1
In Fig. 2a the accuracy score for the stimulus type “animal drawings” is presented showing a
significant main effect of the factor “gender”, F(1,124) = 5.83, p < .05, щ2 = .05, but not for “angular
disparity”, F(1,124) = 3.00, n.s. However it does show a significant interaction between both factors,
F(2,248) = 5.46, p < .05, щ2 = .04. There was neither a gender difference for an angular disparity of 45◦,
F(1,125) = .13, n.s., nor for an angular disparity of 90◦, F(1,125) = 2.58, n.s., but there was a gender
difference for an angular disparity of 135 ◦, F(1,125) = 5.32, p < .05, щ2 = .04.
Fig. 2b shows the accuracy score for the stimulus type “letters”. There was a significant main effect
for “gender”, F(1,159) = 5.18, p < .05, щ2 = .03 and “angular disparity”, F(2,318) = 8.16, p < .001, щ2 = .05,

1
Because the PR-score is rarely used in the analysis of the accuracy rate in mental rotation the results were compared
to the often used measurements of accuracy rate in mental rotation: analyzing only the accuracy rate for the responses on
items which were the same showed a result which was comparable with the PR-score measurement regarding the main
effects. The ANCOVA for the accuracy rate on same items revealed a significant main effect for four factors: “angular disparity”,
F(2,834) = 13.82, p < .001, щ2 = .03; “grade”, F(1,417) = 9.65, p < .01, щ2 = .02; “gender” F(1,417) = 5.78, p < .05, щ2 = .02; and “stim-
ulus type”, F(2,417) = 33.96, p < .001, щ2 = .14. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between the factors “grade” and
“stimulus type”, F(2,417) = 4.43, p < .01, щ2 = .02, and a three-way interaction between “angular disparity”, “stimulus type”, and
“grade”, F(4,834) = 2.55, p < .05, щ2 = .01. When analyzing the accuracy rate for the responses on items which were different,
the ANCOVA revealed a result which was comparable of the ANCOVA of the PR-score. A main effect of angular disparity was
missing despite the significant interaction between angular disparity and KFT-score, F(2, 834) = 3.23, p < .05, щ2 = .008. Further-
more, there were significant main effects of “grade”, F(1,417) = 9.18, p < .01, щ2 = .02; “gender” F(1,417) = 9.39, p < .05, щ2 = .02;
and “stimulus type”, F(2,417) = 182.89, p < .001, щ2 = .47. Additionally there were interactions between “grade” and “stimulus
type”, F(2,417) = 5.39, p < .01, щ2 = .03 and between “angular disparity”, “stimulus type”, and “gender”, F(4,834) = 2.91, p < .05,
щ2 = .01.
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P. Jansen et al. / Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62 57

Fig. 2. PR-score (means and standard deviation) dependent on stimulus type, angular disparity, and gender. Part (a) shows the
PR-score for animal drawings; part (b) shows the PR-scores for letters.

but no interaction between both factors, F(2,318) = 1.3, n.s. Boys (74.53%, SE = 2.93) had a greater accu-
racy score than girls (70.35%, SE = 3.00). The accuracy score was higher for an angular disparity of
45 ◦ (M = 80.07%, SE = 2.03), compared to 90 ◦ (M = 73.22%, SE = 2.24), F(1,161) = 46.46, p < .001, щ2 = .23,
compared to 135◦ (M = 63.64%, SE = 2.33), F(1,161) = 77.61, p < .001, щ2 = .33.
Concerning the accuracy score for the stimulus type “cube figures” there was no significant main
effect of “angular disparity”, F(2,276) = .34, n.s., or “gender”, F(1,138) = 2.03, n.s., nor a significant
interaction between both factors, F(2,276) = .76, n.s. The descriptive effect of angular disparity did not
reach significance because the KFT-score was used as a covariate, F(2,276) = 3.84, p < .05, щ2 = .03. The
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58 P. Jansen et al. / Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62

Fig. 3. Reaction time (means and standard deviation) dependent on stimulus type and grade.

performance in the cube condition (averaged over all angular disparities) was beneath chance for
girls (M = 37.78%, SE = 3.46) as well as for boys (M = 35.56%, SE = 3.43).

3.3. Response time

Response time data of two children were excluded because their reaction time was more than three
standard deviations above the mean.
Because of the very poor PR-score for the stimulus type “cube figures” (see Section 3.2) further
analyses concerning response time were only conducted with the stimuli “animal drawings” and
“letters”. For these two stimulus types, all children who had an error rate lower than 30% in one of the
six conditions (3 levels of angular disparity: 45◦, 90◦, 135◦; 2 types of stimuli presentation: identical
or mirror-reversed) were included in further analysis (43 girls and 43 boys in grade 2, and 53 girls and
64 boys in grade 4). The cut-off criterion was decided based on the work of Perrucci et al. (2008), who
only allowed children to participate in a mental rotation task when they had solved a pre-test stimulus
matching task with less than 18% errors, and on the work of Wiedenbauer and Jansen-Osmann (2008)
who excluded all children with an error rate over 40%.
The KFT reasoning score was used as a covariate in the analysis of the response time. This analysis
of covariance with response time as the dependent variable was restricted to responses to identical
items only, because angular disparity is not unequivocally defined for responses to mirror-reversed
items. The within subject factor was defined as “angular disparity” (45◦, 90◦, 135◦), and the between
subject factors were defined as “gender” (boys vs. girls), “grade” (grade 2 vs. grade 4), and “stimulus
type” (letters vs. animal drawings). The significance levels were corrected according to Huynh and
Feldt (1976) in order to compensate for the non-sphericity of the data. Reliability of the data was
given by measuring the split-half reliability using the odd-even method and the Spearman–Brown
prediction formula for each grade and each angular disparity (grade 2: 45◦: r = .72, 90◦: r = .8, 135◦:
r = .83; grade 4: 45◦: r = .77, 90◦: r = .51, 135◦: r = .86).
The ANCOVA showed significant main effects of the factors “gender”, F(1,193) = 10.36, p < .005,
щ2 = .05, “grade”, F(1,193) = 32.98, p < .001, щ2 = .15, and “angular disparity”, F(2,386) = 39.65, p < .001,
щ2 = .17, but not for “stimulus type”, F(1,193) = .81, n.s. (see Fig. 3). There was no significant interac-
tion. Girls (M = 2000.30 ms, SE = 52.94) needed more time to solve the task than boys (M = 1817.68,
SE = 45.98). Children in the 2nd grade (M = 2147.26 ms, SE = 55.19) showed longer response times than
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P. Jansen et al. / Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62 59

children in 4th grade (M = 1720.79 ms, SE = 38.80), and furthermore, the response time increased with
increasing angular disparity (45◦: M = 1505.68 ms, SE = 30.99; 90◦: M = 1839.72 ms, SE = 36.14; 135◦:
M = 2368.01 ms, SE = 47.00).

4. Discussion

This is the first study which investigates the influence of grade, gender, and stimulus type, and
their possible interactions, on the chronometric mental-rotation performance of elementary-school
children. Previously these elements have only been explored in psychometric tests. Our first hypothesis
regarding gender differences could only be partially confirmed: with animal drawings boys had a
higher accuracy rate only at 135 ◦ of rotation; with letters the overall better accuracy rate of boys
could be shown at all angles. Secondly, it was shown that boys were faster than girls at all rotational
angles, and fourth graders were faster than second graders. Furthermore, the results show that most
children in the 2nd grade and the 4th grade had substantial difficulties to solve a chronometric mental
rotation test with cube figures rotated in the picture plane. Because of this, our hypothesis that cube
figures lead to a larger gender difference could not be investigated in detail.

4.1. Gender differences in accuracy score

Concerning accuracy rate, the results are different for letters and animals drawings. With animal
drawings boys had a higher accuracy rate only at 135 ◦ of rotation; with letters an overall better
accuracy rate of boys was demonstrated. The gender difference in accuracy score with animal drawings
only at the higher angular disparity of 135◦ could be explained if the boys used a different strategy than
the girls to solve these trials. Error rates are more sensitive than reaction time to the effect of holistic vs.
piecemeal rotation. According to different sources of error in the matching process accuracy degrades
as a function of angular disparity when adopting a piecemeal strategy, where participants compare
each part of the figure with the corresponding parts of the reference object (Amorim, Isableu, & Jarraya,
2006). The higher error rate for girls with animal drawings at 135◦ suggests that more girls may use
a piecemeal strategy while rotating animal drawings. Another explanation might be that the animal
drawings are “embodied”. This strategy involves mapping the body axes (head–feet, front–back, and
left–right) onto the animal drawing. If this strategy was used it might be assumed that girls had more
difficulties to rotate the picture into the unfamiliar body positions, such as 135◦ compared to 45◦ and
90◦. This could be due to the girls having less motor experience with these angles than the boys, but this
remains rather speculative and has to be investigated further. Boys showed an advantage in accuracy
score for letters compared to girls at all angular disparities. This might indicate that the strategies
between boys and girls did not differ at either age while solving a mental rotation task with letters.
Differentiating which strategy is used between boys and girls could be investigated with eye-tracking
analysis (Just & Carpenter, 1985).

4.2. Gender differences in reaction time

Concerning the reaction time when using letters and animal drawings as stimulus material, we
found an increasing reaction time with increasing angular disparity, a longer reaction time for 2nd
graders than for 4th graders, and a longer reaction time for girls than for boys. The decreasing reaction
time from grade 2 to grade 4 is in accordance with a general increase in the speed of cognitive processes
with age (Kail, 1988). The increasing reaction time with increasing angular disparity is in line with
many other studies including the classic Shepard and Metzler (1971) study. Interestingly, this increase,
which is assumed to reflect the process of mentally rotating the image, did not differ between boys
and girls. Therefore, the effect of gender might be due to perceptual or motor processes executed
before and after the rotation itself. In further studies a 0◦ condition has to be included to differentiate
between the mental rotation process and the perceptual and motor processes in the mental rotation
task.
The obtained gender differences in this study are in accordance with Linn and Peterson (1985)
who assumed that there is an emergence of gender difference favoring males as early as children can
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60 P. Jansen et al. / Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62

mentally rotate. However, the meta-analysis of Linn and Peterson (1985) only included studies in
which the psychometric MRT was used. Therefore, the revealed gender differences in chronometric
mental-rotation tasks in primary school aged children are a new result. With regard to the influence
of gender, these results are in contrast to the results of chronometric studies which used the
same chronometric stimulus material with adults (Jansen-Osmann & Heil, 2007a). In their study
no gender differences could be detected with letters and animal drawings as stimuli types. One
possible explanation is that the different designs might contribute to these conflicting results: In
the study with adults, trials were presented in blocks “always upright” or “sometimes upright” with
angular disparities of 0◦, 90◦, and 180◦, whereas in this study they were presented randomized
and with angular disparities of 45◦, 90◦, and 135◦. Another difference is that the participants in
the adult study received feedback after each trial whereas the children only received feedback
during the practice trials. While the women were able to see their “good” performance the girls did
not.

4.3. Cube figures as stimuli

A new result of the present study is that children were not able to solve the chronometric mental-
rotation task with cube figures. To our knowledge there is no study investigating mental rotation in
primary school-age children with cube figures as stimuli. For example, Kail et al. (1980) used alphanu-
meric characters and abstract symbols, Marmor (1975) used drawings rotated in picture plane, and
Jansen-Osmann and Heil (2007b) used letters to investigate the neuronal correlates of the mental
rotation process in primary school-aged children. Results are in accordance with the study of Jansen-
Osmann and Heil (2007a) who showed that the mental rotation speed in adults was slower for cube
figures than for letters, animal drawings, PMA-figures, and polygons. This means that adults also found
it more difficult to solve a mental rotation task with cube figures than with other stimulus material.
Children are less familiar with cube figures than with letters and animal drawings, this could cause
the cube figures to be more difficult to process. These results suggest that the mental rotation perfor-
mance in general is stimuli dependent and the stimuli used must be considered as a relevant factor in
developmental and differential visual spatial research.

5. Conclusions

On the basis of the present results, we can conclude that gender differences in chronometric mental-
rotation tests favoring males deserve attention when letters and animal drawings are used as stimuli
and that cube figures are too difficult for children between the ages of 8–10 years to process. This is
a new finding because in previous chronometric studies gender differences are random (e.g. Voyer
et al., 1995) or do only appear in accuracy measurements (Heil & Jansen, 2010). Finally, we know
that our data will contribute to the discussion of gender differences in chronometric mental-rotation
tests and reveal that experimental designs must be carefully considered when comparing studies
of gender differences in mental rotation performance at this age. This study focused on children in
middle childhood, but it is important to say that gender differences in spatial transformation task
are found much earlier in life as demonstrated in preschool children (Levine, Huttenlocher, Taylor, &
Langrock, 1999) and infants (Moore & Johnson, 2008; Quinn & Liben, 2008). According to our results the
obtained gender differences in children younger than 8 years old might be also investigated regarding
the different designs used.
With this study we could not differentiate between a psycho-social and a biological–neuronal
hypothesis. One concern is that “hormone levels begin to rise in middle childhood” (Archibald, Graber,
& Brooks-Gunn, 2006, p. 25), and another concern is that, stereotypic conceptions of gender develop
in middle childhood (Newcombe, Bandura, & Taylor, 1983). In further studies, we will analyze mental
rotation performance in chronometric tests while controlling for hormone levels and self-concepts of
primary school aged children to contribute to the discussion of psycho-social vs. biological–neuronal
causes.
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P. Jansen et al. / Cognitive Development 28 (2013) 51–62 61

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