Developmental Changes in the Relative Weighting of Geometric and Experience-Dependent Location Cues

Abstract

According to the category adjustment model of location estimation, children's responses are biased toward spatial prototypes, and these biases increase under conditions of uncertainty. Consistent with the model, 6-and 11-year-olds' biases toward prototypes increased across delays, especially for locations far from prototypes. Response biases also varied systematically with target frequency; however, responses were not always biased toward prototypes. In Experiment 1, 6-year-olds' responses to an infrequent target near the category boundary were biased toward a frequent target in an adjacent category. In Experiment 2, biases toward a frequent target were evident near prototypes. Both categorical information and children's experience with locations influence location estimates. Moreover, children's selective weighting of competing location cues changes between 6 and 11 years. Spatial cognition has played a central role in developmental psychology since Piaget's early explorations of children's understanding of space (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956; Piaget, Inhelder, & Szeminska, 1960). Despite this long history of research, the field lacks a unifying theory of the development of spatial skills. Recently, Newcombe, Huttenlocher, and colleagues (Newcombe & Huttenlocher, 2000; Newcombe, Huttenlocher, Drummey, & Wiley, 1998) proposed a framework that may unify decades of spatial memory research. According to their account, children encode locations using four coding systems: response learning, dead reckoning, cue learning, and place learning. The response-learning and dead-reckoning systems encode locations in relation to the self. In contrast, the cue-learning and place-learning systems encode locations relative to landmarks in

Prototypes and particulars: Geometric and experience-dependent spatial categories.

“…Responses to this target provided an index of the certainty of the category boundary. If the category boundary is relatively certain-as data from Hund and Spencer (2001) and Spencer and Hund (2001) suggest-responses to this target should show zero mean bias and low variability.…”

“…Specifically, Hund and Spencer (2001) and Spencer and Hund (2001) found that 6-and 11-year-old children used the midline symmetry axis to divide the task space into left and right regions (see dashed line in Figure 5). Given that older children and adults generally categorize space in the same manner (e.g., Sandberg et al, 1996), we expected adults to use the midline axis to form two large spatial categories with geometric prototypes at the centers of each region (i.e., at Ϯ90°).…”

Human Spatial Memory and Navigation

“…However, it is likely that even very young infants use spatial updating when simple forms of movement, such as rotation about the trunk or tilting with respect to gravity, are involved (e.g., Rieser, 1979;Landau and Spelke, 1988). Furthermore, Newcombe and Huttenlocher (2000) have argued that spatial development is most likely characterized by an increased weighting of relevant cues rather than by the appearance of wholly new abilities (for evidence in older children, see Hund and Spencer, 2003). As infants become more mobile and can perform more complex actions in larger environments, cues such as self-movement and landmarks become increasingly relevant.…”

Testing the Dynamic Field Theory: Working Memory for Locations Becomes More Spatially Precise Over Development

“…It is important to note that the task input at B (i.e., the lid) plays a central role in this account: The task input keeps the self-sustaining peak centered at the B location. In the absence of task input, self-sustaining peaks can drift during memory delays (Hund & Spencer, 2003;Schutte & Spencer, 2002;Spencer & Hund, 2002, in press). This is the third type of developmental effect captured by the DFT and was the focus of the present study.…”