Effects of Age, Spatial Relation and Object Type on Young Children’s Analogical Transfer of Spatial Relations

Abstract

Objective This study tested four- and five-year-old children's analogical transfer of spatial relations from samples consisting of either richly decorated geometric shapes or concrete objects. It also examined whether young children would transfer containment relations more readily than they would transfer support relations, and whether the difference between children's transfer of containment and support relations would vary with object type and age. Methods Four- and five-year-old children (N = 73) recruited in Busan were presented with a spatial analogies task adopted from Huttenlocher and Levine (1990). Children were asked to transfer containment and support relations from samples consisting of either richly decorated geometric shapes or concrete objects, to three choices consisting of concrete objects. Results First, four-year-olds successfully transferred containment relations only from concrete objects, whereas five-year-olds did so from both types of objects. Second, four-year-olds failed to transfer support relations regardless of object type, whereas five-year-olds successfully transferred support relations from richly decorated geometric shapes. Third, five-year-olds overall showed better performance than four-year-olds. Finally, children transferred containment relations more readily than they transferred support relations only when the samples consisted of concrete objects (but not when the samples were geometric shapes). Conclusion The results suggest that children's transfer of spatial relations overall improves between ages four and five years and that young children's transfer of support relations (less salient spatial relations than containment) may benefit from the use of geometric shapes. Keywords: analogical transfer, containment, support, geometric shapes, concrete objects