A dissociation between object manipulation spatial ability and spatial orientation ability

We developed psychometric tests of spatial orientation ability, in which pe ople are shown a two-dimensional array of objects, imagine taking a perspec tive within the array, and indicate the direction to a target object from t his perspective. Patterns of errors on these tests were consistent with exp erimental studies of perspective taking. Characteristic errors and verbal p rotocols supported the validity of the perspective-taking tests, suggesting that people encoded the objects in the display with respect to a body-cent ered coordinate system when the imagined perspective was more than 90 degre es different from the orientation of the display. By comparing alternative models in a confirmatory factor analysis, we found that the ability to ment ally rotate and manipulate an imagined object (as measured by tests of spat ial visualization and spatial relations) and the ability to reorient the im agined self (as measured by the perspective-taking tests) are separable spa tial abilities.