Manipulating and recognizing virtual objects: Where the action is

In an earlier report (Harman, Humphrey, & Goodale, 1999). we demonstrated t hat observers who actively rotated three-dimensional novel objects on a com puter screen later showed faster visual recognition of these objects than d id observers who had passively viewed exactly the same sequence of images o f these virtual objects. In Experiment 1 of the present study we showed tha t compared to passive viewing, active exploration of three-dimensional obje ct structure led to faster performance on a "mental rotation" task involvin g the studied objects. In addition, we examined how much time observers con centrated on particular views during active exploration. As we found in the previous report. they spent most of their time looking at the "side" and " front" views ("plan" views) of the objects, rather than the three-quarter o r intermediate views. This strong preference for the plan views of an objec t led us to examine the possibility in Experiment 2 that restricting the st udied views in active exploration to either the plan views or the intermedi ate views would result in differential learning. We found that recognition of objects was faster after active exploration limited to plan views than a fter active exploration of intermediate views. Taken together, these experi ments demonstrate (1) that active: exploration facilitates learning of the three-dimensional structure of objects. and (2) that the superior performan ce following active exploration may be a direct result of the opportunity t o spend more time on plan views of the object.