Free spatial reasoning game — instant play, no signup, no download
Mental Rotation shows two three-dimensional shapes and asks whether one is a rotation of the other or a mirror image. It is the task Shepard and Metzler used in their 1971 experiment, which found that response time rises linearly with the angle of rotation — strong evidence that people really do rotate a mental image rather than reasoning about it abstractly.
Two 3D shapes are shown at different orientations.
Decide whether they are the same object rotated, or mirror images.
Answer as quickly as you can while staying accurate.
Rotation angles increase as you progress.
Your score combines accuracy with response time.
A game is 12 rounds. Each shows two shapes: either the same shape turned by a multiple of 90°, or a different shape. Answer same or different.
Each correct answer scores 1, for a maximum of 12. Your best score is saved in this browser.
Mental rotation — one of the most clearly defined spatial abilities, and one of the most reliably trainable. Practice improves it substantially and the improvement persists. Another spatial game to try next: Number Path.
In a famous 1971 experiment, Roger Shepard and Jacqueline Metzler showed that the time needed to decide whether two shapes match increases in a straight line with the angle between them — as if people rotate a mental image at a steady speed.
Spatial skills are among the most trainable in cognitive psychology: a 2013 meta-analysis of 217 studies found that practice improves them substantially, and that the gains last and transfer to related spatial tasks.
Pick one distinctive feature — an end limb, a bend — and track only that. Rotating the whole object is slow.
Count the segments in each arm. A mirror image usually has the same segments in a different handedness.
Rotate the shape to a standard orientation in your head rather than comparing them where they sit.
Expect to slow down as the angle grows. That is the effect the task measures, not a failure on your part.
That the time to decide whether two shapes match rises in proportion to the angle between them — as if people mentally rotate the object at a roughly constant rate.
Because no rotation makes them match, so the mental rotation strategy never resolves. You have to notice the handedness instead.
Differences between groups are reported for some rotation tests, but the overlap is large and training narrows the gap considerably. It tells you nothing about an individual.
Yes. Mental rotation is among the most convincingly trainable of the spatial skills.