Processes underlying young children's spatial orientation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the processes underlying spatial orientation in 3-year-old children. After the subjects had seen the experimenter hide an object in one of the two hiding locations on a turntable, they were asked to indicate the location of the object under three conditions: (a) only the table is rotated up to 180 degrees by 45 degrees steps, (b) only the subject is moved to an opposite side by 45 degrees steps, and (c) both the table and the subject were moved simultaneously up to 180 degrees by 45 degrees steps. The results showed that the discrepancy between the locations subjects indicated and the correct locations increased with the degree of rotation in all conditions although there were no significant differences among the conditions. Some of the individual patterns, however, indicated abrupt increases of the discrepancy. These findings suggest that the spatial orientation consists of perceptual and representational processes.