Abstract
In spatial development representations of the environment and the use of spatial cues change over time. To date, the influence of individual differences in skills relevant for orientation and navigation has not received much attention. The current study investigated orientation abilities on the basis of visual spatial cues in 2–3-year-old children, and assessed factors that possibly influence spatial task performance. Thirty-month and 35-month-olds performed an on-screen Virtual Reality (VR) orientation task searching for an animated target in the presence of visual self-movement cues and landmark information. Results show that, in contrast to 30-month-old children, 35-month-olds were successful in using visual spatial cues for maintaining orientation. Neither age group benefited from landmarks present in the environment, suggesting that successful task performance relied on the use of optic flow cues, rather than object-to-object relations. Analysis of individual differences revealed that 2-year-olds who were relatively more independent in comparison to their peers, as measured by the daily living skills scale of the parental questionnaire Vineland-Screener were most successful at the orientation task. These results support previous findings indicating that the use of various spatial cues gradually improves during early childhood. Our data show that a developmental transition in spatial cue use can be witnessed within a relatively short period of 5 months only. Furthermore, this study indicates that rather than chronological age, individual differences may play a role in successful use of visual cues for spatial updating in an orientation task. Future studies are necessary to assess the exact nature of these individual differences.
Highlights
Spatial orientation refers to the ability to maintain body orientation in relation to the surrounding environment at rest and during motion, and is considered a necessary prerequisite for successful navigation
A follow-up within-group ANOVA for the younger age group revealed a significant main effect for congruency, with higher accuracy scores in the side congruent compared to the Side Incongruent (SInc) conditions, F(1, 22) = 29.03, p < 0.001, η2p = 0.57
The current study investigated the ability of 2.5–3-year-olds to maintain orientation in an on-screen Virtual Reality (VR) task, and assessed factors that may influence spatial task performance
Summary
Spatial orientation refers to the ability to maintain body orientation in relation to the surrounding environment at rest and during motion, and is considered a necessary prerequisite for successful navigation. One system involves the representation of positions of objects in relation to the observer, called egocentric coding It can be used when the observer is stationary or when he/she is able to track his/her movement based on optic flow, vestibular and proprioceptive cues, a process known as path integration. In adults there is growing evidence for a two-system model of parallel spatial-representational systems provided by body and environment in object-location memory (Simons and Wang, 1998; Wang and Simons, 1999; Mou et al, 2004; Nadel and Hardt, 2004; Burgess, 2006; Waller and Hodgson, 2006). Studies investigating the cerebral organization of spatial processing in patients and healthy adults provide evidence for specific, partially overlapping, neural circuits mediating egocentric and allocentric representations (Ghaem et al, 1997; Maguire et al, 1998; Mellet et al, 2000; Committeri et al, 2004; Janzen and Jansen, 2010)
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