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Mental rotation (MR) is the ability to transform a mental representation of an object so as to accurately predict how the object would look from a different angle (Sci 171:701-703, 1971), and it is involved in a number of important cognitive and behavioral activities. In this review we discuss recent studies that have examined MR in infants and the development of MR across the first year after birth. These studies have produced many conflicting results, yet several tentative conclusions can be reached. First, MR may be operational in infants as young as 3 months of age. Second, there may be sex differences in MR performance in infancy, in general favoring males, as there are in children and in adults. Third, there appear to be multiple influences on infants' MR performance, including infants' motor activity, stimulus or task complexity, hormones, and parental attitudes. We conclude by calling for additional research to examine more carefully the causes and consequences of MR abilities early in life.

Mental rotation (MR) is an important feature of spatial cognition invoking mental imagery of an object's appearance when viewed from a new orientation. Prior studies have revealed evidence of MR in infants, including a sex difference similar to that detected in older populations. Some of these studies used visual habituation methods whereby infants were familiarized with an object rotating through a 240° angle, followed by test trials showing either the habituation object or a mirror image object rotating through the previously unseen 120° angle. Significantly longer looking at either of these objects was taken to reflect infants' ability to recognize the habituation object even when seen from a novel viewpoint, suggesting the capacity for MR. However, these infants' responses could, in theory, be explained with reference to perceptual discrimination rather than MR, because the views of the habituation and test objects were very similar in some video frames. In the current study, we observed a diverse population of 5-month-olds (24 females, 24 males) for evidence of MR through 30° of arc. In this more challenging test, our stimuli left a 30° gap angle between critical video frames representing the habituation and test objects. Consistent with earlier reports, we found that relative to female infants, male infants looked significantly longer at the mirror image test stimulus immediately following habituation. These results add to an emerging consensus that some young infants are capable of MR, and that male and female infants on average behave differently in this type of MR task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the usefulness of multimedia technology for teaching statistics, with attention to both promises and pitfalls. We suggest some principles for the design and use of multimedia, and we offer opinions on the role of human teachers in a multimedia educational environment. KEY WORDS: Animation; Narration; Simulation; Video., 1. INTRODUCTION It seems that it is always the next generation of education technology that will revolutionize teaching. Television, which has had dramatic effects on many aspects of society, has [...]

Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists, by Joel Best. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001, 190 pp. It Ain't Necessarily So: […]

A majority of statisticians are questioning the movement among some of their peers to teach Bayesian methods in introductory statistics courses. They point out that standard statistical inference does not need conditioning on an obsereved event. They urge peers involved in the movement to think well before restructuring the teaching methods for unprepared beginners of these course., I enjoyed reading the papers of Jim Albert and Don Berry and the comments of the discussants. I share Albert's concern that a first course should center on data, and [...]