Investigating Cognitive Strategies in a Mental Rotation Task using Eye Tracking Heat Maps

This research explores the use of heat maps derived from eye- tracking data to identify cognitive strategies in mental rotation tasks. Traditional methods like eye-tracking metrics and interviews have limitations in capturing the full spectrum of strategy use. We propose heat maps as a novel methodology to bridge the gap between behavioral outputs and cognitive processes. Our preliminary findings demonstrate distinct heat map signatures for holistic and piecemeal strategies, validated through interview data. This work contributes to spatial cognition research by providing a more comprehensive framework for strategy classification and has implications for STEM education and cognitive assessment.