The Emergence of Flexible Spatial Strategies in Young Children

Cognitive Development, 2005

Late and early preschoolers' attention and spatial strategies were examined in response to instructions to recall relevant objects . The impact of spatial cues on preschoolers' selective attention. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 164, 42-53] and irrelevant objects [Blumberg, F. C. & Torenberg, M. (in press). The effects of spatial configuration on preschoolers' selective attention and incidental learning. Infant & Child Development], and to spatial placement of objects within a multi-colored box. Sets of toy chairs or animals were designated as relevant or irrelevant and placed in each of the box's corners (corners condition), in the middle of its walls (walls condition), or in two corners and in the middle of two walls (control condition). Selective attention and spatial strategies were assessed via the removal sequence of items. Recall was assessed via correct relocations of relevant items. Older children and corners condition children showed significantly better recall than children in other conditions. Overall, most children used selective strategies, indicating that relevance of items, rather than their spatial categorization as corners or walls influenced strategy choice.

Journal of Cognition and Development, 2003

Using 2 computerized spatial navigation tasks, we examined the development of cue and place learning in children ages 3 to 10 years, comparing their data to adults. We also examined relations between place learning in computerized and real space. Results showed children use the 2-dimensional space as if it were real space. Results also demonstrated that children ages 3 to 10 years cue learn (locating a visible target) but do not show evidence of mature place learning (locating an invisible target) until around age 10 years. Self-report data indicated an age-related increase in use of relations among distal cues during place learning. Children ages 3 to 4 years did not report using distal cues; most 9-to 10-year-old children reported using multiple distal cues to guide their search during place learning. Results suggest that, as maturation proceeds, children make increasing use of relations among multiple distal cues to guide a search for places in space. In this study, we examined the developmental time course of two externally referenced spatial navigation strategies: cue learning and place learning. Cue learning refers to coding a location in space relative to coincident landmarks or proximal

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.

Journal of Cognition and Development, 2003

According to the category adjustment model of location estimation, children's responses are biased toward spatial prototypes, and these biases increase under conditions of uncertainty. Consistent with the model, 6-and 11-year-olds' biases toward prototypes increased across delays, especially for locations far from prototypes. Response biases also varied systematically with target frequency; however, responses were not always biased toward prototypes. In Experiment 1, 6-year-olds' responses to an infrequent target near the category boundary were biased toward a frequent target in an adjacent category. In Experiment 2, biases toward a frequent target were evident near prototypes. Both categorical information and children's experience with locations influence location estimates. Moreover, children's selective weighting of competing location cues changes between 6 and 11 years. Spatial cognition has played a central role in developmental psychology since Piaget's early explorations of children's understanding of space (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956; Piaget, Inhelder, & Szeminska, 1960). Despite this long history of research, the field lacks a unifying theory of the development of spatial skills. Recently, Newcombe, Huttenlocher, and colleagues (Newcombe & Huttenlocher, 2000; Newcombe, Huttenlocher, Drummey, & Wiley, 1998) proposed a framework that may unify decades of spatial memory research. According to their account, children encode locations using four coding systems: response learning, dead reckoning, cue learning, and place learning. The response-learning and dead-reckoning systems encode locations in relation to the self. In contrast, the cue-learning and place-learning systems encode locations relative to landmarks in

Cognitive Psychology, 2003

This study investigated whether childrenÕs spatial recall performance shows three separable characteristics: (1) biases away from symmetry axes (geometric effects); (2) systematic drift over delays; and (3) biases toward the exemplar distribution experienced in the task (experience-dependent effects). In Experiment 1, the location of one target within each geometric category was varied. ChildrenÕs responses showed biases away from a midline axis that increased over delays. In Experiment 2, multiple targets were placed within each category at the same locations used in Experiment 1. After removing geometric effects, 6-year-oldsÕ-but not 11year-oldsÕ-responses were biased toward the average remembered location over learning. In Experiment 3, children responded to one target more frequently than the others. Both 6and 11-year-olds showed biases toward the most frequent target over learning. These results provide a bridge between the performance of younger children and adults, demonstrating continuity in the processes that underlie spatial memory abilities across development.

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.

Child …, 1995

The ability of 1-year-old infants to remember the location of a nonvisible target was investigated in 3 experiments. Infants searched for a toy hidden in one of many possible locations within a circular bounded space. The presence, number, and spatial arrangement of local cues or "landmarks" within this space were varied. The results of Experiment 1 showed that search performance was highly successful when a landmark was coincident with the location of the toy ("direct"), but less successful when a landmark was adjacent to the target location ("indirect"). The results of Experiment 2 suggested that search with an indirect landmark may be more fragile than search with no landmarks at all. In Experiments 3a and 3b, 2 different configurations of indirect landmarks were employed; search performance was equally poor with both of these and was inferior to search with no landmarks. It is concluded that infants of this age are able to associate a nonvisible target with a direct landmark and are able to code the distance and direction of a target with respect to themselves or with respect to the larger framework. However, there was no evidence that they can code the distance and direction of a target relative to another object. The difficulty of coding with indirect landmarks is interpreted in terms of cognitive complexity and conflict between spatial strategies. The ability to represent and relocate sig-riodically by "fix-taking" or noting one's acnificant places is obviously adaptive for tual position with respect to perceptually many species. Mobile animals ranging from distinct features ("landmarks"), ants to humans must be able to return to good food sources, for example, and then These remarkable spatial abilities are find their way back to their nests or homes present at birth or shortly thereafter in many again. Such navigational behavior has been species, but in mammals, and particularly extensively studied, and the associated per-in humans, they follow a developmental ceptual-cognitive systems are varied and course. Piaget (1952, 1954) observed that incomplex (see, e.g., Gallistel, 1989; Pick & fants initially encode the locations of impor-Acredolo, 1983; Poucet, 1993). The most ef-tant objects or events in terms of the specific ficient systems combine a representation of actions that led them to those objects or the environment ("mapping") with keeping events on earlier occasions. Only over a protrack of one's own movements ("path inte-tracted course of development do they come gration"). This combination provides the an-to encode locations in terms of the spatial imal with moment-to-moment knowledge of relations between the target and their own its position in the environment. The repre-changing position or between the target and sented position is confirmed and revised pe-other external objects. The strategy of en

Developmental Science, 2000

It has been suggested that learning an object's location relative to (1) intramaze landmarks and (2) local boundaries is supported by parallel striatal and hippocampal systems, both of which rely upon input from a third system for orientation. However, little is known about the developmental trajectories of these systems' contributions to spatial learning. The present study tested 5-and 7-year-old children and adults on a water maze-like task in which all three types of cue were available. Participants had to remember the location of an object hidden in a circular bounded environment containing a moveable intramaze landmark and surrounded by distal cues. Children performed less accurately than adults, and showed a different pattern of error. While adults relied most on the stable cue provided by the boundary, children relied on both landmark and boundary cues similarly, suggesting a developmental increase in the weighting given to boundary cues. Further, adults were most accurate in coding angular information (dependent on distal cues), whereas children were most accurate in coding distance, suggesting a developing ability to use distal cues to orient. These results indicate that children as young as 5 years use boundary, intramaze landmark, and distal visual cues in parallel, but that the basic accuracy and relative weighting of these cues changes during subsequent development.

2008

It has been suggested that learning an object's location relative to (1) intramaze landmarks and (2) local boundaries is supported by parallel striatal and hippocampal systems, both of which rely upon input from a third system for orientation. However, little is known about the developmental trajectories of these systems' contributions to spatial learning. The present study tested 5-and 7-year-old children and adults on a water maze-like task in which all three types of cue were available. Participants had to remember the location of an object hidden in a circular bounded environment containing a moveable intramaze landmark and surrounded by distal cues. Children performed less accurately than adults, and showed a different pattern of error. While adults relied most on the stable cue provided by the boundary, children relied on both landmark and boundary cues similarly, suggesting a developmental increase in the weighting given to boundary cues. Further, adults were most accurate in coding angular information (dependent on distal cues), whereas children were most accurate in coding distance, suggesting a developing ability to use distal cues to orient. These results indicate that children as young as 5 years use boundary, intramaze landmark, and distal visual cues in parallel, but that the basic accuracy and relative weighting of these cues changes during subsequent development.

Cognitive Development, 1987

To examine the importance of children's learning to fit mnemonic strategies to specific tasks, this study investigated the role of deliberate remembering in 5-, 7-, and 10-year-old children's memory for spatial relationships. The children explored a laboratory funhouse under three conditions: being told to remember, not being told to remember but being involved with the information through a spatial activity, and being told to remember as well as being involved with the information through a spatial activity. Previous research suggests that, by roughly age 7, children attempt to remember lists through linear strategies such as rehearsal. In learning to master such linear strategies, children may attempt to apply them to tasks in which they are less relevant, such as remembering spatial relations in complex nonlinear spaces. Hence, it was expected that 7-year-olds would perform more poorly on a spatial-memory test when told to remember than when simply involved with the spatial information in an incidental activity. These differences were not expected for 5-year-olds, who are not expected to apply linear strategies such as rehearsal, or for 10-year-olds, who may be more skilled in tailoring their memory strategies to the spatial memory task. The findings supported the predictions. Seven-year-old children who were told to remember (with or without the incidental spatial activity) performed more poorly than 7-year-olds who were not told to remember but were only involved with the information in the spatial activity. The 7-year-olds who were told to remember appeared to apply an inappropriate list-memory strategy, consistent with rehearsal. There were no differences between conditions for the 5-or 10-year-old children, and performance improved with age. The difference between conditions for the 7-year-olds suggests that children who are learning to use linear strategies may overapply them, with resulting decrements in recall of nonlinear spatial information.