Children's early ability to solve perspective-taking problems.

Abstract

Piaget and Inhelder (1948/1967) claimed that, until 9 or 10 years of age, children had great difficulty with perspective taking. Huttenlocher and Presson (1979) showed, however, that these problems were linked to conflict between actual and imagined frames of reference; asking what object occupied a specified location with respect to a hypothetical observer (item questions) led to much better performance. The present experiments extend these findings to younger children: 5-yearolds (Experiment 1); 4-year-olds, for near and far locations but not left and right (Experiment 2); 4-year-olds for left-right questions (Experiment 3); and 3-year-olds (Experiment 4). In addition, Experiment 4 showed that memory was not the basis for answering. These data show clearly that preschool children can indicate locations relative to another position. Knowing the locations of things has obvious adaptive significance for human beings (and for other species). People need, for instance, to keep track of the location of food and shelter, to avoid dangers, and to stay in contact with other people. Memory for the location of such things must be maintained when one moves around the environment as well as when one remains in a fixed position. In addition, it is often beneficial to be able to anticipate location relative to different potential vantage points (perspective taking). The present article concerns children's ability to perform perspective-taking tasks. The most prominent account to date of the developmental origins of people's understanding of space and of their ability to construct other perspectives has been that of Piaget (Piaget & Inhelder, 1948/1967; Piaget, Inhelder, & Szeminska, 1948/ 1981). Piaget believed that an understanding of the spatial world is constructed from humble innate beginnings and is not established in its adult form until the age of 9 or 10 years. In particular, he held that children could not succeed at perspective-taking problems because they coded spatial location in a fashion fundamentally different from that of adults.