Mental Rotation

How to play

Four spatial tasks. You start by reading rotated numbers; higher levels add shapes to rotate and mirror in your head.

• Read — a number appears tilted, even fully upside-down. Picture it upright and read its value. The angle climbs toward 180° and look-alike digits (6 and 9) come into play.
• Match — two shapes sit side by side. Are they the same shape rotated, or is one a mirror image?
• Odd One Out — several copies of one shape, every one rotated except a single mirror image. Tap the mirror.
• Pick — a target shape and several rotated candidates. Find the one that is a true rotation, not a mirror.

The science

Mental rotation is one of the few trainable skills where practice sticks and carries over to other spatial tasks — across 217 studies (Uttal et al., 2013). Spatial ability is also linked to maths and science. You build spatial reasoning, not general IQ.