The Visual Puzzles task asks you to reconstruct a whole from its parts
The task presents a completed figure and six separate pieces. You choose the three pieces that can be combined to reproduce the completed figure.
The pieces may be rotated but not flipped. You mentally rotate them, simulate their arrangement, and check whether the combination produces the correct shape.
The task first requires seeing how the completed figure could be divided into parts, then combining candidate pieces and checking whether they match the whole. It moves between the whole and its parts while mentally checking how the shapes fit together.
The task uses mental decomposition and rotation without hand movement.
What the Visual Puzzles task measures
Visual Puzzles is one of the BrainTypeIQ tasks used to measure Gv, or visuospatial processing.
It uses visualization to break a completed shape into parts and reconstruct it while changing the orientation of the pieces. The other Gv task, Paper Folding, follows the sequence from folding to punching a hole and then unfolding. Visual Puzzles instead matches parts with a whole.
WAIS Visual Puzzles also asks which pieces can form a completed shape. BrainTypeIQ’s task has its own items and scoring.
Visuospatial processing (Gv) explains the broader ability.
What a higher Visual Puzzles score can show
A higher Visual Puzzles score indicates that it is easier to see how separate pieces can form a completed shape.
It may be easier to see which part of the completed figure a candidate piece could form, imagine a piece after rotation, and check whether a combination matches the entire shape.
This processing appears when a shape or structure needs to be viewed as separate parts, or when the result of combining several components needs to be imagined.
Why a Visual Puzzles score may be lower
Several demands can make the Visual Puzzles task more difficult.
- Breaking the completed shape into parts is demanding — the possible boundaries between pieces need to be identified
- Changing the orientation of pieces is demanding — each shape needs to be checked after mental rotation
- A partial match is accepted too early — a piece that fits one section may be selected before the whole combination is checked
Following changes from folding through unfolding is more visible in Paper Folding, while discovering rules in figures is more visible in Matrix Reasoning.
BrainTypeIQ uses nine online tasks, including Visual Puzzles, to show overall IQ and a five-domain cognitive profile. How to read the report explains how the task and domain scores fit together.