Abstract
In order to investigate how geometrical transformations contribute to various cognitive judgements of patterns, 5-dots-in-3×3-matrix patterns were rated by male and female adults for goodness, simplicity, similarity, and other aspects. (1) Since the wide individual differences were observed in the judgements of pattern goodness, it was concluded that the ratings for goodness were not very reliable. (2) The ratings for pattern simplicity were very reliable, and they could be explained by two kinds of transformations. One was the rotation·mirror-image transformation related to symmetry, and the other was the translation related to linearity. (3) The ratings for similarity between patterns were also reliable, and they could be explained by the inter-pattern transformation and the simplicity of each pattern. (4) In the forced-choice-session, subjects were asked to choose from an equivalence set the prototype and a pattern most similar to it; their choices were affected by the vertical mirror-image transformation more than the others.
