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The Development of Relational Landmark Use in Six‐ to Twelve‐Month‐Old Infants in a Spatial Orientation Task
Author(s) -
Lew Adina R.,
Bremner J. Gavin,
Lefkovitch Leonard P.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8624.00222
Subject(s) - landmark , psychology , coding (social sciences) , orientation (vector space) , spatial cognition , task (project management) , spatial ability , spatial relation , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , artificial intelligence , cognition , computer science , neuroscience , statistics , geometry , mathematics , management , economics
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.