A dissociation between mental rotation and perspective-taking spatial abilities

Recent psychometric results [Mem. Cogn. 29 (2001) 745] have supported a distinction between mental abilities that require a spatial transformation of a perceived object (e.g., mental rotation) and those that involve imagining how a scene looks like from different viewpoints (e.g., perspective taking). Two experiments provide further evidence for and generalize this dissociation. Experiment 1 shows that the separability of mental rotation and perspective taking is not dependent on the method by which people are tested. Experiment 2 generalizes the distinction to account for perspective taking within perceived small-scale and imagined large-scale environments. Although dissociable, measures of perspective taking and mental rotation are quite highly correlated. The research suggests some reasons why psychometric studies have not found strong evidence for the separability of the spatial visualization and spatial orientation factors, although a strong dissociation between tasks that are dependent on mental rotation and perspective-taking processes has been found in the experimental cognitive literature. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.