Mental rotation in three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles and its association with assembling blocks: A pilot study

Abstract

The jigsaw puzzle works as one rotates a puzzle piece to fit into its counterpart piece. Thus, mental rotation is expected to occur in solving the puzzle, three-dimensional in the present study. On this point, the process might differ from that of a traditional task that compares, or matches, a target stimulus with a reference stim-ulus. The rationale is because of how the processes would be internally represented in mind. Experiment 1 was performed through these notions. Besides, Experiment 2 was planned as correlational research to apply the results into vocational rehabilitation. The application is intended to detect an association between the performance of mental rotation and that of building blocks. Although similar studies were performed, those methodologies needed more details. Given this point, a unique data-curating technique is proposed in the present study to combine mean reaction time and error rate by assigning ranks based on priority. The technique was applied to predict those capable of assembling blocks. In addition, whether the strength of the association differs was also checked. The present study was conducted as a pilot study to explore its potential, fine-tune the design of experiments, and estimate sample size through power analysis. Experiment 1 suggested that mental rotation is utilized to fit a puzzle piece into its counterpart and that the task deviates from that of matching objects. Experiment 2 indicated that the capability of solving the puzzle among individuals strongly associates with that of assembling blocks. Besides, it implied the potential of utilizing the priority-based rank-ordering technique to predict assembling capabilities among individuals through computer-based behavioral data. The results of the present study were contrasted with that of similar research to permeably explain behaviors through a proposed unique model.