Person:

Lee, Sang Ah

Although disoriented young children reorient themselves in relation to the shape of the surrounding surface layout, cognitive accounts of this ability vary. The present paper tests three theories of reorientation: a snapshot theory based on visual image-matching computations, an adaptive combination theory proposing that diverse environmental cues to orientation are weighted according to their experienced reliability, and a modular theory centering on encapsulated computations of the shape of the extended surface layout. Seven experiments test these theories by manipulating four properties of objects placed within a cylindrical space: their size, motion, dimensionality, and distance from the space’s borders. Their findings support the modular theory and suggest that disoriented search behavior centers on two processes: a reorientation process based on the geometry of the 3D surface layout, and a beacon-guidance process based on the local features of objects and surface markings.

Geometry is one of the highest achievements of our species, but its foundations are obscure. Consistent with longstanding suggestions that geometrical knowledge is rooted in processes guiding navigation, the present study examines potential sources of geometrical knowledge in the navigation processes by which young children establish their sense of orientation. Past research reveals that children reorient both by the shape of the surface layout and the shapes of distinctive landmarks, but it fails to clarify what shape properties children use. The present study explores 2-year-old children’s sensitivity to angle, length, distance and direction by testing disoriented children’s search in a variety of fragmented rhombic and rectangular environments. Children reoriented themselves in accord with surface distances and directions, but they failed to use surface lengths or corner angles either for directional reorientation or as local landmarks. Thus, navigating children navigate by some but not all of the abstract properties captured by formal Euclidean geometry. While navigation systems may contribute to children’s developing geometric understanding, they likely are not the sole source of abstract geometric intuitions.