Research Question

In this study, the researchers intended to measure the time that subjects (adult participants) needed to determine the certain identity (human subjects usually determine that two two-dimensional pictures portray objects of the same three-dimensional shape even when in different orientations ) of a shape as a function of the angular difference in the portrayed orientations of the two three-dimensional objects.

Literature Review

This study did not include an apparent literature review and there hardly any references made to literature.

Methodology

There were 8 adult subjects. They were given 1600 pairs of perspective line drawings and asked to pull a right-hand lever as soon as they decided that the two drawings portrayed objects that were congruent with respect to three-dimensional shape and to pull a left-hand lever as soon as they decided that the two drawings depicted objects of different three-dimensional shapes. The 1600 pairs were grouped of blocks of not more than 200 and presented over eight to ten 1-hour sessions. Each trial began with a warning tone which was followed half a second later by the presentation of a stimulus pair and the simultaneous on set of a timer. The subjects were instructed to respond as quickly as possible while keeping errors to a minimum.

Results

On the average only 3.2 percent of the responses were in correct. The reaction time data presented include only the 96.8 percent correct responses. However the data for the incorrect responses exhibit a similar pattern. This study shows that the time to recognize that two-dimensional perspective drawings portray a three-dimensional object increases linearly with the number of angular rotations required to portray the 3D object and reflects the time it takes to mentally process the rotation of the object. They found that the time needed to recognize that two perspective drawings portray objects of the same three-dimensional shape is a linearly increasing function of the angular difference in the portrayed orientations of the two objects and no shorter for differences corresponding simply to a rigid rotation of one of the two-dimensional drawings in its own picture plane than for differences corresponding to a rotation of the three-dimensional object in-depth.