TY - JOUR

T1 - The development of relational landmark use in 6- to 12-month-old infants in a spatial orientation task.

AU - Lew, Adina

AU - Bremner, J. Gavin

AU - Lefkovitch, L

PY - 2000/9

Y1 - 2000/9

N2 - The ability to use the relations between visible landmarks to locate nonvisible goals (allocentric spatial coding) underlies success on a variety of everyday spatial orientation problems. Little is known about the development of true relational coding in infancy. Ninety-six 6-, 8.5- and 12-month-old infants were observed in a peekaboo paradigm in which they had to turn to a target location after displacement to a novel position and direction of facing. In a landmark condition, the target position was located between two landmarks, contrasted with a control condition in which no distinctive landmarks were provided. Six-month-old infants performed poorly in both conditions, 8.5-month-olds were significantly better with the landmarks, and 12-month-olds solved the task with or without landmarks. A follow-up study confirmed that the 8.5-month-olds used both landmarks to solve the task. This demonstration of allocentric spatial coding in 8.5-month-old infants shows earlier competence than that found in previous work in which only infants at the end of the first year were able to use landmarks relationally.

AB - The ability to use the relations between visible landmarks to locate nonvisible goals (allocentric spatial coding) underlies success on a variety of everyday spatial orientation problems. Little is known about the development of true relational coding in infancy. Ninety-six 6-, 8.5- and 12-month-old infants were observed in a peekaboo paradigm in which they had to turn to a target location after displacement to a novel position and direction of facing. In a landmark condition, the target position was located between two landmarks, contrasted with a control condition in which no distinctive landmarks were provided. Six-month-old infants performed poorly in both conditions, 8.5-month-olds were significantly better with the landmarks, and 12-month-olds solved the task with or without landmarks. A follow-up study confirmed that the 8.5-month-olds used both landmarks to solve the task. This demonstration of allocentric spatial coding in 8.5-month-old infants shows earlier competence than that found in previous work in which only infants at the end of the first year were able to use landmarks relationally.

U2 - 10.1111/1467-8624.00222

DO - 10.1111/1467-8624.00222

M3 - Journal article

VL - 71

SP - 1179

EP - 1190

JO - Child Development

JF - Child Development

SN - 0009-3920

IS - 5

ER -