title: Discrepancy between mental rotation and perspective-taking abilities in normal aging assessed by Piaget's Three-mountain task.
abstract: In a cross-sectional study, we examined age-related differences in visuo-spatial ability associated with image rotation, using two variants of Piaget's 'Three-Mountain Task.' The object-mental rotation (OMR) task detects the ability to mentally rotate an image, whereas the subject-mental rotation (SMR) task reveals the ability to mentally change one's perspective. A group of 33 young adults, 26 middle-aged adults, and 31 elderly normal adults were studied. Both tasks revealed age-related differences in performance but a larger difference between middle-aged and elderly group was observed for SMR than OMR performance. Age-related increases in the 'egocentric' type of error were found only on the SMR task. The results suggest that the ability to mentally change one's perspective declines with age, perhaps more than the ability to mentally rotate objects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Inagaki
authors.forename: Kenichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Meguro
authors.forename: Masumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shimada
authors.forename: Junichi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ishizaki
authors.forename: Hideyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Okuzumi
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yamadori
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology; D012399:Rotation; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis