Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:43:59.419Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A gamified approach to assessing mental rotation in virtual reality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2024

Kristin Alicia Bartlett ,
Almudena Palacios-Ibáñez  and
Jorge Dorribo Camba
Kristin Alicia Bartlett*
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky, United States of America
Almudena Palacios-Ibáñez
Affiliation:
Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
Jorge Dorribo Camba
Affiliation:
Purdue University, United States of America
*
[email protected]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We present a new spatial skills assessment tool, the Virtual Reality Mental Rotation Assessment. Results suggest that the gamified immersive experience enabled increased levels of engagement and motivation and the instrument was likely not biased in favor or people with past virtual reality (VR) experience. Using VR did not appear to introduce additional problems beyond those present in a traditional spatial test, as moving one's body to change perspective did not correlate with improved performance. Our findings have implications for training and assessing spatial skills in engineering.

Keywords

spatial skillsmental rotationvirtual reality (VR)design educationvisualisation
Type
Design Education
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 4: DESIGN 2024 , May 2024 , pp. 2805 - 2814
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2024.

References

Bartlett, K.A. (2023), “The Politics of the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test of Rotations (PSVT:R) and its Use in Engineering Education”, Engineering Studies, pp. 1–22, https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2023.2297958.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartlett, K.A. and Camba, J.D. (2022), “An argument for visualization technologies in spatial skills assessment”, in Zaphiris, P. and Ioannou, A. (Eds.), Learning and Collaboration Technologies. Designing the Learner and Teacher Experience. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 13328, presented at the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Springer, Cham., Online due to COVID-19, pp. 30–39, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05657-4_3.Google Scholar
Bartlett, K.A. and Camba, J.D. (2023a), “The role of a graphical interpretation factor in the assessment of spatial visualization: A critical analysis”, Spatial Cognition & Computation, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 1–30, https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13875868.2021.2019260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartlett, K.A. and Camba, J.D. (2023b), “Gender Differences in Spatial Ability: a Critical Review”, Educational Psychology Review, Vol. 35 No. 1, p. 8, https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09728-2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartlett, K.A., Palacios-Ibáñez, A. and Camba, J.D. (2023), “Design and Validation of a Virtual Reality Mental Rotation Test”, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3626238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caissie, A.F., Vigneau, F. and Bors, D.A. (2009), “What does the mental rotation test measure? An analysis of item difficulty and item characteristics”, The Open Psychology Journal, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 94–102, https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1874350100902010094.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, C.A. and Hegarty, M. (2012), “Inferring cross sections of 3D objects: A new spatial thinking test”, Learning and Individual Differences, Vol. 22 No. 6, pp. 868–874, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.05.007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guay, R.B. (1976), “Purdue Spatial Visualisation Test: Rotations”, West Lafayette: Purdue Research Foundation.Google Scholar
Guzsvinecz, T., Orbán-Mihálykó, É. and Perge, E. (2020), “Analyzing the Spatial Skills of University Students with a Virtual Reality Application using a Desktop Display and the Gear VR”, Acta Polytechnica Hungarica, Vol. 17 No. 2, p. 22.Google Scholar
Hegarty, M. (2018), “Ability and sex differences in spatial thinking: What does the mental rotation test really measure?”, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 1212–1219, https://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1347-z.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maeda, Y. and Yoon, S.Y. (2013), “A Meta-Analysis on Gender Differences in Mental Rotation Ability Measured by the Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests: Visualization of Rotations (PSVT:R)”, Educational Psychology Review, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 69–94, https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10648-012-9215-x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, M., Laeng, B., Latham, K., Jackson, M., Zaiyouna, R. and Richardson, C. (1995), “A redrawn Vandenberg and Kuse mental rotations test-different versions and factors that affect performance”, Brain and Cognition, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 39–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pizlo, Z. (2008), 3D Shape: Its Unique Place in Visual Perception, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reid, C. and Sorby, S. (2023), “Exploring The Development Of Engineering Design Creativity And The Role Of Spatial Skills In This Process”, presented at the 51st Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), Dublin , Ireland, https://dx.doi.org/10.21427/V3MF-TV62.Google Scholar
Sanandaji, A., Grimm, C. and West, R. (2017), “Inferring cross-sections of 3D objects: a 3D spatial ability test instrument for 3D volume segmentation”, Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception, presented at the SAP 17: ACM Symposium on Applied Perception 2017, ACM, Cottbus Germany, pp. 1–4, https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3119881.3119888.Google Scholar
Sorby, S.A., Veurink, N. and Streiner, S. (2018), “Does spatial skills instruction improve STEM outcomes? The answer is ‘yes’”, Learning and Individual Differences, Vol. 67 No. 2018, pp. 209–222, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2018.09.001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stieff, M., Origenes, A., DeSutter, D., Lira, M., Banevicius, L., Tabang, D. and Cabel, G. (2018), “Operational constraints on the mental rotation of STEM representations.”, Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 110 No. 8, pp. 1160–1174, https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tóth, R., Zichar, M. and Hoffmann, M. (2020), “Gamified Mental Cutting Test for enhancing spatial skills”, presented at the 11th IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications, Online on MaxWhere 3D Web, pp. 000229–000304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vandenberg, S.G. and Kuse, A.R. (1978), “Mental rotations, a group test of three-dimensional spatial visualization”, Perceptual and Motor Skills, Vol. 47 No. 2, pp. 599–604, https://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pms.1978.47.2.599.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wauck, H., Woodard, B.S., Xiao, Z., Li, T.W. and Bailey, B.P. (2020), “A Data-Driven, Player-Centric Approach to Evaluating Spatial Skill Training Games”, Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, presented at the CHI PLAY 20: The Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, ACM, Virtual Event Canada, pp. 349–361, https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3410404.3414255.Google Scholar
Yoon, S.Y. (2011), “Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Visualization of Rotations (Revised PSVT:R) [Psychometric Instrument]”.Google Scholar