Manipulating and Recognizing Virtual Objects: Where the Action Is

In an earlier report ( Harman, Humphrey, & Goodale, 1999 ), we demonstrated that observers who actively rotated three-dimensional novel objects on a computer screen later showed faster visual recognition of these objects than did observers who had passively viewed exactly the same sequence of images of these virtual objects. In Experiment 1 of the present study we showed that compared to passive viewing, active exploration of three-dimensional object structure led to faster performance on a "mental rotation" task involving the studied objects. In addition, we examined how much time observers concentrated on particular views during active exploration. As we found in the previous report, they spent most of their time looking at the "side" and "front" views ("plan" views) of the objects, rather than the three-quarter or intermediate views. This strong preference for the plan views of an object led us to examine the possibility in Experiment 2 that restricting the studied views in active exploration to either the plan views or the intermediate views would result in differential learning. We found that recognition of objects was faster after active exploration limited to plan views than after active exploration of intermediate views. Taken together, these experiments demonstrate (1) that active exploration facilitates learning of the three-dimensional structure of objects, and (2) that the superior performance following active exploration may be a direct result of the opportunity to spend more time on plan views of the object. Lors d'une étude antérieure ( Harman, Humphrey et Goodale, 1999 ), nous avons démontré que les observateurs qui effectuaient eux-mêmes la rotation d'objets tridimensionnels nouveaux, présentés à l'écran d'un ordinateur, affichaient une reconnaissance visuelle de ces objets plus rapide que ne le faisaient les observateurs qui avaient passivement visionné la même suite d'images illustrant ces objets virtuels. Dans l'expérience 1 de la présente étude, nous avons montré que, par rapport à l'observation passive, l'exploration active de la structure d'un objet tridimensionnel accélère la performance lors d'une tâche de « rotation mentale » qui met en jeu les objets explorés. De plus, nous avons évalué le temps que les observateurs consacraient à différentes vues particulières des objets pendant l'exploration active. Comme dans notre précédente étude, ils ont consacré la majorité de leur temps aux vues de côté et de face des objets plutôt qu'aux