Psychological Research Report on Perception Essay -- essays research p

ABSTRACT People are thought to be able to mentally rotate an object so as to be able to imagine it in a different orientation. In this experiment partcipants were presented with two three dimensional objects. Some of the pairs of objects where the same object and some of them where different objects. Partcipants were asked to identify whether the second object was the same as the first one in the pair, even though it was shown as being rotated around a set angle, or if it was a completely different object. The reaction time of the partcipant’s was found to be directly related to the degree of the angle of which the object was rotated. METHODS Participants A total of 11 subject participated in this experiment. These participants were from colleges and universities around the world. There was no personal information collected in this experiment such as sex or age or background. The only information gathered was the reaction time data. Participants in this experiment where informed about the nature of this experiment and asked to consent to participate in it. Materials This experiment was conducted over a computer terminal. Participants where presented with pairs of three dimensional objects. These objects consisted of 16 basic objects each presented in 4 different perspectives each adding up to a total of 64 separate presentations. Half of the object pairs presented where of identical objects but where one of the objects where rotated to a specified degree which were identified as same objects. The other half of the pairs presented where of objects that where mirror images of each other and also rotated around a given angle which where identified as different objects. Design and Procedure This experiment was... ...t are consistent with other experiments involving the mental rotation of objects in that in all of these experiments the time which it takes the participants to make a decision linearly increases with the angle of rotation. These results show that the processes of the mind are consistent with the geometric constraints of the real world. The greater the difference in the orientation of an object in reality is equivalent to the difference in the time it takes for a person to identify that object. This is obviously very helpful in the real world where objects can be imagined to be rotated and used as in the example of a dog which would turn a stick around so as to be able to fit it through a hole. It has been proposed that this ability to imagine objects in different orientations has evolved according to the rules governing physics and geometry in the real world.