TY - JOUR

T1 - Strategy Selection versus Flexibility

T2 - Using Eye-trackers to Investigate Strategy Use during Mental Rotation

AU - Nazareth, Alina

AU - Killick, Rebecca Claire

AU - Dick, Anthony Steven

AU - Pruden, Shannon M.

N1 - ©American Psychological Association, 2018. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: 10.1037/xlm0000574

PY - 2019/2/1

Y1 - 2019/2/1

N2 - Spatial researchers have been arguing over the optimum cognitive strategy for spatial problem-solving for several decades. The current article aims to shift this debate from strategy dichotomies to strategy flexibility-a cognitive process, which although alluded to in spatial research, presents practical methodological challenges to empirical testing. In the current study, participants' eye movements were tracked during a mental rotation task (MRT) using the Tobii x60 eye-tracker. Results of a latent profile analysis, combining different eye movement parameters, indicated two distinct eye-patterns-fixating and switching patterns. The switching eye-pattern was associated with high mental rotation performance. There were no sex differences in eye-patterns. To investigate strategy flexibility, we used a novel application of the changepoint detection algorithm on eye movement data. Strategy flexibility significantly predicted mental rotation performance. Male participants demonstrated higher strategy flexibility than did female participants. Our findings highlight the importance of strategy flexibility in spatial thinking and have implications for designing spatial training techniques. The novel approaches to analyzing eye movement data in the current paper can be extended to research beyond the spatial domain.

AB - Spatial researchers have been arguing over the optimum cognitive strategy for spatial problem-solving for several decades. The current article aims to shift this debate from strategy dichotomies to strategy flexibility-a cognitive process, which although alluded to in spatial research, presents practical methodological challenges to empirical testing. In the current study, participants' eye movements were tracked during a mental rotation task (MRT) using the Tobii x60 eye-tracker. Results of a latent profile analysis, combining different eye movement parameters, indicated two distinct eye-patterns-fixating and switching patterns. The switching eye-pattern was associated with high mental rotation performance. There were no sex differences in eye-patterns. To investigate strategy flexibility, we used a novel application of the changepoint detection algorithm on eye movement data. Strategy flexibility significantly predicted mental rotation performance. Male participants demonstrated higher strategy flexibility than did female participants. Our findings highlight the importance of strategy flexibility in spatial thinking and have implications for designing spatial training techniques. The novel approaches to analyzing eye movement data in the current paper can be extended to research beyond the spatial domain.

KW - cognitive

KW - spatial

KW - eye-movement

KW - sex differences

KW - changepoint analysis

U2 - 10.1037/xlm0000574

DO - 10.1037/xlm0000574

M3 - Journal article

VL - 45

SP - 232

EP - 245

JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

SN - 0278-7393

IS - 2

ER -