[The effect of the duration of mental work on problem solving in mental rotation]

Effect of sustained mental work on the first stage of mental rotation was studied by the method of intracortical interaction. It was revealed that during sustained mental work the zone of the high level of connections in the alpha-band was considerably reduced due to an increase of specificity, rationality of thinking. In the beta-band the zone of the high connection level moved from the central and parietal areas to the anterior regions because of a switch of intention of the mental work from the spatial analysis to the quick verbalization of the response. Tired subjects in search for a word for the response did not fulfil the spatial analysis of the pictures. Subjects with high working ability searched for the verbal response on the basis of mental operations with images, that turned to be optimal for the mental rotation task solving.