Early Development of Spatial Orientation in Humans

Abstract

Up to this point in the conference the focus has been almost exclusively on animals other than humans. Among other things, we have heard about homing behavior in pigeons, detour behavior in horses, caching behavior in chickadees, and maze-running behavior in rats and hamsters. To the extent that humans have been mentioned, it has been in the context of the abnormal human brain and what light it might shed on the physiology underlying spatial behavior. All that is about to change. In my own paper and in those to follow, an attempt will be made to outline some of what is known about normal human spatial behavior in three-dimensional, real-life space. The scope of the problem is large—in fact, too large to provide a definitive overview. Instead, what I have chosen to do is to focus on the very beginnings of the human life cycle—the infant years between birth and 18 months—in an effort to provide some understanding of the roots of later spatial accomplishments. After all, to use an appropriately spatial metaphor, one cannot fully appreciate where one is without some knowledge of where one has been and how far one has had to travel to reach the present location.