ABILITY AND TROPICAL CLIMATE 1 2 3 4 Effects of Tropical Climate on Mental Rotation : The Role of Imagery Ability 5

1 This study examined how a tropical climate (i.e., hot and wet climatic environment) could 2 affect mental rotation according to imagery ability. The participants performed two tests 3 sessions in quite hot temperature: Tropical Climate (TC) then in Air Conditioning (AC) in a 4 randomized order. During each session, the participants fulfilled the Movement Imagery 5 Questionnaire Revised version (MIQ-R) and the Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test (VMRT). 6 A first analysis including all the participants revealed that men had better VMRT scores than 7 women in AC which confirm the gender effect generally observed. However, no statistical 8 gender difference was observed in TC in which men deteriorated their performance. A second 9 analysis including MIQ-R scores, as participant selection, evidenced a significant interaction 10 between imagery ability and climate condition and revealed that poor imagers had worse 11 VMRT scores in TC than in AC, whereas no significant difference was observed for good 12 imagers. Moreover, MIQ-R scores were lower in TC than in AC for the visual and 13 kinaesthetic imagery. More precisely, good imagers had significant lower visual imagery 14 MIQ-R scores in TC than in AC and poor imagers tend to deteriorate their kinaesthetic 15 imagery MIQ-R scores in TC. The results of this study are consistent with the idea that TC 16 can negatively affect mental rotation, motor imagery and imagery ability and the influence of 17 TC on them is discussed. Further research is needed to investigate the hygrometry effects on 18 imagery. 19