MENTAL ROTATION OF STATIC AND DYNAMIC FIGURES

Previous studies comparing performance on standard (ie., static) and d ynamic spatial test items have concluded that the two item types measu re different abilities. Such conclusions about the uniqueness of stati c and dynamic spatial abilities seem premature, however, since only a limited number of dynamic spatial tasks have been utilized in research and these have differed markedly from their static counterparts. In t he present studies, tasks were designed to require a common mental ope ration (mental rotation) under static and dynamic conditions. Correlat ions between static and dynamic performance ranged from .80 to .90. Th is appears to suggest that the emergence of a unique dynamic ability f actor depends on the utilization of certain specialized tasks (e.g., a rrival time tasks) with mental operations much different than those re quired by conventional spatial tests. In other words, it is apparently the requirement for different cognitive processes and not the process ing of stimulus motion per se that distinguishes performance on some d ynamic tasks from performance on some standard static tasks.