Does a row of objects comprise a boundary? How children miss the forest for the trees in spatial navigation.

Abstract

Unlike children's early ability to navigate by continuous boundaries, their ability to extract geometric information from an array of objects emerges gradually over childhood. To investigate children's developing representation of object arrays for navigation and its relation to their mental representation of the global spatial layout, reorientation behavior was tested in 146 children (4-9 years, 78 male children and 68 female children, Italian) with rectangular arrays made up of 20 objects. Posttest questions on children's spatial language and their mental and pictorial representation of the environment were administered. Although children of all ages navigated by the geometry of continuous boundary-like arrays, they only succeeded with separated object arrays at around 7 years of age. This developmental change was predicted by children's individual ability to extract the abstract geometry of the spatial layout in a two-dimensional picture of the room. Public Significance StatementWe tested 146 four-to nine-year-olds' ability to navigate by rectangular arrays made of 20 objects, each varying in their continuity and spacing. Children of all ages extracted the global geometry of continuous arrays containing wall-like boundaries; the use of discontinuous object arrays emerged at 6-7 years. Children's navigation by the geometry of the object arrays was associated with their identification of a two-dimensional pictorial depiction of the array.