title: Hand mental rotation is not systematically altered by actual body position: Laterality judgment versus same-different comparison tasks.
abstract: It is commonly believed that during mental rotation of body parts, participants tend to imagine their own body part moving toward the stimulus, thus using an egocentric strategy. Several studies have also shown that the mental rotation of hands is affected by the actual hand position, especially if the hand is kept in an awkward position. However, this hand posture effect, as well as the use of an egocentric strategy during mental rotation of body parts, is not systematic. Several experiments have demonstrated that manipulating the stimulus features or the paradigm could induce a shift to visual and allocentric strategies. Here, we studied the effects of hand posture and biomechanical constraints on one-hand mental rotation (laterality judgment task), two-hand mental rotation (same-different judgment task), and mental rotation of one or two alphanumeric symbols (control tasks). Effects of posture and biomechanical constraints were observed solely for the laterality judgment task. Response times in the same-different hand mental rotation items were influenced by the angular disparity between the stimuli. We interpreted our result as evidence of the use of different strategies for each task. Future research should focus on disentangling the exact subprocesses in which an egocentric strategy is used, in order to propose better tests for participants with motor impairments.
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche et d'Innovation sur le Sport-CRIS EA 647, Université Claude Bernard-Lyon I, 27-29 Boulevard du 11 Novembre 1918, 69 622, Villeurbanne Cedex, France, nady.hoyek@univ-lyon1.fr.
authors.forename: Nady
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hoyek
authors.forename: Franck
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Di Rienzo
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Collet
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Creveaux
authors.forename: Aymeric
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Guillot
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D001828:Body Image; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D056228:Feedback, Sensory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005528:Foot; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011187:Posture / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012399:Rotation; D055815:Young Adult