The process of mental rotation in design: Holistic or piecemeal

The aim of this study was to determine whether designers use holistic or piecemeal processing in mental rotation. The independent variables manipulated by this study were group type (designer group and regular group), the complexity of polygons, and different rotational angles. The dependent variable was the length of time required to determine whether the pairs of polygons were identical or not. Results show that a greater degree of graphical complexity implies longer reaction time. This outcome indicates that the process of mental rotation is the same for designers as for regular individuals - both groups use piecemeal processing.