The role of locomotion in the acquisition and transfer of spatial knowledge in children (original) (raw)
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British Journal of Psychology, 2003
Spatial behaviour was investigated using a spatial learning task based on the Radial Arm Maze, the Morris Water Maze, and open-eld search-task procedures. Ninety-six healthy children from six age groups (3, 4, 5, 7, 10 and 12 years) with no history of CNS disorders were studied with respect to the emergence of position-, cue-and place responses. Participants were to detect x out of n hidden locations, frames of reference could be varied systematically, and three spatial memory errors and speed of navigation were recorded automatically. Task dif culties were equivalent for each age group. Results showed that navigational place learning was fully developed by the age of 10, whereas participants relied on cue orientation up to age 7. Even in the youngest group, the task could be achieved without relying on egocentric orientation, provided that proximal cues were presented. Most of the errors were of the reference memory type, whereas working memory errors were extremely rare. Speed of navigation markedly improved between age 5 and 7. An additional experiment showed that navigational place-learning behaviour was clearly dependent on distal cues. A third study showed that in young adults, learning of the spatial layout improved, but performance on the place task did not improve any further. No sex differences were observed.
Spatial Knowledge Acquisition by Children: Route Learning and Relational Distances
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1992
Our purpose is to examine spatial knowledge acquisition via route learning processes. To gain as much control as possible, yet study learning in actual environments, we conducted field experiments using an unfamiliar suburban neighborhood and a subject p o p ulation of 9-to 12-year-old children whose activity spaces are most highly oriented to the neighborhood level. I n addition to multipletrial route learning, we gave subjects a battery of tasks including cue recognition, cue sequencing, and interpoint distance estimation, using a variety of route segment scenarios. The children generally achieved route learning after three trials and successfully completed on and off-route cue location and sequencing tasks. Subjects had difficulty with the distance estimation tasks, particularly when conditions of segment inclusion were violated. Sketch mapping and interpoint judgment tasks clearly indicate that this subject group found it difficult to integrate knowledge acquired from the two separate but partially overlapping routes. Results suggest that the term "route knowledge" is ambiguous, for subjects can learn to navigate routes without having definable procedures for unpacking the basic spatial knowledge contained in routes. They can acquire the ability to learn and follow a route between an origin and destination while procedures for integrating that knowledge into an understanding of spatial layout may be absent. This suggests that the development of configurational knowledge structures is not a simple consequence of learning declarative and procedural knowledge systems. We emphasize the implications of these results for the cognitive mapping process and the need to understand spatial reasoning and its developmental phases.
A conceptual model and empirical analysis of children's acquisition of spatial knowledge
Journal of Environmental Psychology, 1985
How adults and children come to understand, represent and behave within their spatial environment are topics of great interest to geographers, psychologists, environmental planners and laypeople. Considerable research and theory has been published on these and related topics. In this paper, we will review some of what is known and theorized about spatial cognition and then consider elements of our research program on the acquisition of spatial knowledge. We focus on two intimately related topics. The first is the development of a conceptual model of the knowledge structures and processes associated with acquiring, representing and accessing knowledge of a given environment. The conceptual model forms the basis for a formal computational process model intended as a simulation of actual knowledge • and performance in way finding tasks. The second emphasis is an in-depth case study of the acquisition of spatial knowledge. The case study focuses on a single child acquiring knowledge of a lengthy route through an unfamiliar suburban neighborhood. It is presented as an empirical test of certain assumptions embodied within the conceptual model. Before introducing the conceptual model and the case study, we first review the state of current theory and data on spatial cognition and identify four central issues confronting researchers in this field. This review provides a necessary context for describing and evaluating our program of research. The second section of this paper discusses elements of the conceptual model and its relationship to other formal computational models. The third section considers specific hypotheses about the acquisition and representation of spatial knowledge and tests of these hypotheses from the single in-depth case study. The final discussion section of this paper is a reconsideration of the four issues raised in the first section and necessary and proposed extensions of the current research.
The Emergence of Flexible Spatial Strategies in Young Children
2012
The development of spatial navigation in children depends not only on remembering which landmarks lead to a goal location but also on developing strategies to deal with changes in the environment or imperfections in memory. Using cue combination methods, the authors examined 3-and 4-year-old children's memory for different types of spatial cues and the spatial strategies that they use when those cues are in conflict. Children were taught to search for a toy in 1 of 4 possible hiding locations. Children were then tested on transformations of the array of locations. The transformations dissociated the different types of cues by putting them in conflict with one another. The authors were especially interested in the use of a majority strategy, by which children choose to search in the location indicated by the greatest number of cue types rather than relying on a preferred cue type. Children's memory for spatial cues and their strategies varied both by age and by experimental setup. In Experiment 1, both 3and 4-year-old children preferred to use the distinct landmarks coincident with the hiding locations over any other types of cues and showed no use of a majority strategy. However, in Experiment 2, when the coincident landmarks were moved adjacent to the hiding locations, both 3-and 4-year-old children preferred to search in the position of the hiding location relative to the array. Furthermore, 4-year-old children in Experiment 2 showed better memory for individual types of cues and the emergence of a majority strategy.
The Parallel Map Theory: Ontogeny of Flexible Spatial Strategies in Young Children
2020
The parallel map theory explains that the hippocampus encodes space with two mapping systems: The bearing map created from ―directional cues and stimulus gradients‖; The sketch map constructed from ―positional cues‖. The integrated map combines the two mapping systems. Such parallel functioning may explain paradoxes of spatial learning in intellectual disabilities. This people may be able to memorize their surroundings in a highly detailed way, thus ordering their sensory perceptions into a representation that includes the precise localization of static objects, they are not able to ―map‖ their own spatial relationship to those objects. The detection of moving objects by these same subjects contributes to a primary bearing map. The primary map is thus generated by relying on this kind of static map, but also by detecting moving objects. This process can be described as a spatial mode of processing separate objects within the structure of an absolute reference system.
Reorientation in a small-scale environment by 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children
Cognitive Development, 2001
Geometric features of surfaces and local information are constitutive elements of spatial representations. A number of studies in animals (rats) and human children (24 months old) have shown that in a rectangular environment with a reward hidden in one of the corners, geometric properties predominate over local cues for search strategies. In contrast, monkeys and human adults are able to take into account both types of information (geometric and local) to reorient. So far, all of the experiments have been conducted in the locomotor space involving a navigational task. In the present study, we examined whether similar search patterns are found using a tabletop model of a rectangular room. Three groups of children (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) and one group of adults were tested. Results show that geometric encoding appears only at 4 years of age, that is later than in the locomotor space. The joint use of geometry and local cues emerges at 5 years of age. These data show that similar types of processing are implemented in both manipulatory and locomotor space but not at the same time. The difference between locomotor and manipulatory tasks suggests that being immersed in the environment makes this separated processing easier than being confronted by a task for which the object is exterior to the participant. D
Geometry is one of the highest achievements of our species, but its foundations are obscure. Consistent with longstanding suggestions that geometrical knowledge is rooted in processes guiding navigation, the present study examines potential sources of geometrical knowledge in the navigation processes by which young children establish their sense of orientation. Past research reveals that children reorient both by the shape of the surface layout and the shapes of distinctive landmarks, but it fails to clarify what shape properties children use. The present study explores 2-year-old children's sensitivity to angle, length, distance and direction by testing disoriented children's search in a variety of fragmented rhombic and rectangular environments. Children reoriented themselves in accord with surface distances and directions, but they failed to use surface lengths or corner angles either for directional reorientation or as local landmarks. Thus, navigating children navigate by some but not all of the abstract properties captured by formal Euclidean geometry. While navigation systems may contribute to children's developing geometric understanding, they likely are not the sole source of abstract geometric intuitions.
Spatial Cognition & Computation, 2007
This study investigated the effects of featural information (landmarks) and geometric information (pre-exposure to a structural map) and their possible interaction during the process of spatial knowledge acquisition of 8-and 11-year-old children and adults in a virtual environment. The study confirmed the well-known result of a developmental achievement in spatial cognition from childhood to adulthood. Although landmarks and the pre-exposure to a structural map did not affect the time to learn a specific route, they influenced the use of behavior in spatial learning and eased the acquisition of spatial knowledge measured by a route reversal and map-drawing tasks. Children and adults are able to integrate featural and geometric information in the spatial knowledge acquisition process in an environmental space, but their integration depends on the spatial processing stages that are investigated. Moreover, it was successfully demonstrated that the use of desktop virtual environments seems to be appropriate to investigate the development of spatial cognition.
The process of spatial knowledge acquisition in a square and a circular virtual environment
Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 2007
This study investigated the effect of the environmental structure (circular vs. square environment) on spatial knowledge acquisition in a desktop virtual situation in which self-determined movement was allowed with a total of 120 participants: 7-, 8-year-old children; 11, 12-yearold children, and adults. In all measurements of spatial knowledge acquisition an overall developmental performance increase from younger children to adults was found. In contrast to that, the exploration and learning behavior did not differ between adults and children. Furthermore, the environmental structure influenced the number of trials needed to learn the two routes used and the distance walked to the determined landmarks. All these tasks were easier in a circular than in a square environment. This influence of the environmental structure was absent in the direction estimations task. The advantage of spatial knowledge acquisition in a circular environment in three of four tasks is discussed.