Mental rotation of objects retrieved from memory: a functional MRI study of spatial processing.
This functional MRI study examined how people mentally rotate a 3-dimensional object (an alarm clock) that is retrieved from memory and rotated according to a sequence of auditory instructions. We manipulated the geometric properties of the rotation, such as having successive rotation steps around a single axis versus alternating between 2 axes. The latter condition produced much more activation in several areas. Also, the activation in several areas increased with the number of rotation steps. During successive rotations around a single axis, the activation was similar for rotations in the picture plane and rotations in depth. The parietal (but not extrastriate) activation was similar to mental rotation of a visually presented object. The findings indicate that a large-scale cortical network computes different types of spatial information by dynamically drawing on each of its components to a differential, situation-specific degree.
Just
M A
MA
Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, Psychology Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA. just+@cmu.edu
Carpenter
P A
PA
Maguire
M
M
Diwadkar
V
V
McMains
S
S
D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D003867:Depth Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology