Developmental 4: Space and number Flashcards
(46 cards)
What are conservation failures?
Striking failures of reasoning about physical properties until the “concrete operational” stage (around 6-7 years)
Child does not understand that quantity stays the same despite appearing different in different containers/shapes
What is the three mountains task (Piaget)?
At what age can children successfully do this?
Children have to choose a picture of how three mountains would look from a certain point of view
Preschool children (≤ 4 yrs) unable to choose pictures showing how the mountains would look from other points of view
Tend to choose the picture of their own view - “egocentrism”
Consistently correct solutions not until 10-12 years
Does explicit reasoning about formal properties (e.g. space, number, area, volume) take a long time to develop?
Yes
However, basic precursors for these abilities develop very early - studies show that infants have capabilities for representing space and number (as do animals)
Are later developing formal spatial and mathematical systems uniquely human?
Yes
They are supported by language
What is an issue with conservation tasks?
Experimenter effect
Child feels they need to behave well and answer leading questions the right way - may feel they have to say they are different simply because experimenter made a change
What cognitive abilities does the three mountains task use?
Inhibition and cognitive switching
What are basic vs formal abilities for understanding space?
Basic = location coding and navigation
Formal = map reading and geometry
What are basic vs formal abilities for understanding number and maths?
Basic = small number tracking and large number discrimination
Formal = exact numerosity and arithmetic
What is egocentric spatial orienting? (present from birth)
Can roughly orient towards visual, auditory or tactile stimuli - relative to their own body
What does egocentric spatial orienting develop into by age 1?
Spatial updating (keeping track of locations as you move)
Start to take own movement into account during 1st year
When does room geometry develop? (Use of spatial updating and landmarks to find a specific landmark)
18-24 months
When can children use flexible coding using indirect landmarks?
At 5+ years
From egocentrism to spatial updating: Experiment done in which infant learns to orient to Window A where an experimenter is playing “peekaboo” whenever a buzzer sounds (infant’s RIGHT).
Infant is carried to the opposite side. The buzzer sounds.
AT what age do infants look to the correct window A, (now infant’s LEFT) or the incorrect window B (but egocentrically “correct”) window?
- At 11 months - orient relative to their own body - their right
- After 1 year - orient to the side of the room where peekaboo happens - non-egocentric orienting
Ability to update position correctly when moved develops at around 1 year.
What is spatial updating?
Keeping track of locations as you move
- Well-known in animal world - foraging for food
- AKA path integration or dead reckoning
What is landmark use?
Coding where a target is relative to landmarks
At what age do infants develop spatial updating and landmark use?
Around 18 months
Updating = 16 months +
Landmark use = 22 months +
What is the sandbox task?
Infant sees toy be hidden (buried)
Egocentric condition:
Retrieve toy from same side - solve this egocentrically simply by encoding relative to body
Opoosite side condition:
Retrieve toy from opposite side
This requires either updating body encoding to take own movement into account AND/OR using external landmarks
How do 16 month olds vs 22 month olds perform on the sandbox task?
At 16 months, navigating to same side and opposite side were both above chance
Adding extra landmarks in the room improved performance only from 22 months+
What is the disorientation task?
Measures landmark use (room geometry)
Remove updating by disorientating - people cannot keep track of where they are - purely rely on landmarks
Spin child around
4 walls - 3 white 1 blue - feature colour information
2 walls short 2 walls long
Toy that child likes - put it in one of the boxes in four corners
Where will they look for toy after being disorientated?
Geometry - will choose corner with long wall on left and short wall on right - 2 corners
Colour (featural) - corner of blue wall
Both - correct corner - long wall on left and short wall on right and short wall is blue
How do 18 month olds vs 4 year olds use geometry vs feature information on disorientation tasks?
18 month olds use geometry over feature information - not yet relevant for them to orient themselves in a space
By 4 years, children use both to orient to correct corner
What was Spelke’s proposed innate geometric module?
Innate geometric module for processing room shape - modular as it does not let in feature info
This would explain why 18 month olds do not use feature info
How does Spelke explain why the disorientation task is solved at 4 years?
Attribute this to development of language abilities. “Core” (innate) geometric understanding combined with linguistic coding for left/right/next to, etc.
Do humans have an early developing capacity to perceive the shape (geometry) of 3D layouts?
Yes
Nardini et al (2006) Virtual reality study:
3-6 year-olds had to recall the location of a toy within an array surrounded by landmarks.
When changed viewpoint is produced by walking around - can use spatial updating - at what age can this be solved?
3+
