Effects of prolonged weightlessness on mental rotation of three-dimensional objects

Previous experiments have suggested that the analysis of visual images could be a gravity-dependent process. We investigated this hypothesis using a mental rotation paradigm with pictures of three-dimensional objects during a 26-day orbital flight aboard the Soviet MIR station. The analysis of cosmo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inExperimental brain research Vol. 94; no. 1; p. 152
Main Authors Matsakis, Y, Lipshits, M, Gurfinkel, V, Berthoz, A
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Germany 01.05.1993
Subjects
Adult
Female
Humans
Imagination - physiology
Male
Middle Aged
Orientation - physiology
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Rotation
Space Flight
Weightlessness - adverse effects
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Summary:Previous experiments have suggested that the analysis of visual images could be a gravity-dependent process. We investigated this hypothesis using a mental rotation paradigm with pictures of three-dimensional objects during a 26-day orbital flight aboard the Soviet MIR station. The analysis of cosmonauts' response times showed that the mental rotation task is not greatly impaired in weightlessness. On the contrary, there are indications of a facilitation as: (1) the average rotation time per degree was shorter inflight than on the ground; (2) this difference seemed to be particularly marked for stimuli calling for roll axis rotations. However several factors may be responsible for this difference which was not obvious in one subject. Further experiments will have to test if this effect is really due to exposure to microgravity.
ISSN:0014-4819
DOI:10.1007/BF00230478