The (un)usefulness of interactive exploration in building 3D- mental representations.

The generation of mental representations from visual images is crucial in 3-D object recognition. In two experiments, thirty-six participants were divided into a low, middle, and high visuospatial ability (VSA) group, which was determined by Vandenberg and Kuse's MRT-A test (1978 Perception and Motor Skills 47 599 - 601). In the experiments, the influence of four types of exploration (none, passive 2-D, passive 3-D, and interactive 3-D) on building 3-D mental representations was investigated. First, 24 simple and 24 complex objects (consisting of respectively 3 and 5 geons (Biederman, 1987 Psychological Review 94 115 - 147) were explored and, subsequently, tested through a mental rotation test. Results revealed that participants with a low VSA benefit from interactive exploration of objects opposed to passive exploration. This refines James et al's findings (2001 Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 55 111 - 120), who reported a general increased performance with interactive as compared to passive exploration. Our results underline that individual differences are of key importance when investigating human's visuospatial system or visualisation techniques.