Abstract
Although the capacity to navigate by environmental boundaries has been widely documented, the perceptual and physical factors that define a boundary have yet to be defined. In this study, we tested children’s navigation in spatial arrays consisting of 20 freestanding objects with varied inter-object spacing and length. Children begin to successfully compute locations using aligned (but discontinuous) object arrays around the seventh year of age. Our results suggest a late-emerging capacity of extrapolating geometric information from discontinuous structures.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Cheng K (1986) A purely geometric module in the rat’s spatial representation. Cognition 23(2):149–178
Doeller CF, Burgess N (2008) Distinct error-correcting and incidental learning of location relative to landmarks and boundaries. Proc Natl Acad Sci 105(15):5909–5914
Doeller CF, King JA, Burgess N (2008) Parallel striatal and hippocampal systems for landmarks and boundaries in spatial memory. Proc Natl Acad Sci 105(15):5915–5920
Gianni E, Lee SA (in prep.). The role of visual boundary-structures in early spatial mapping
Gouteux S, Thinus-Blanc C, Vauclair J (2001) Rhesus monkeys use geometric and nongeometric information during a reorientation task. J Exp Psychol Gen 130(3):505
Hartley T, Lever C, Burgess N, O’Keefe J (2014) Space in the brain: how the hippocampal formation supports spatial cognition. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 369(1635):20120510
Hermer L, Spelke ES (1994) A geometric process for spatial reorientation in young children. Nature 370(6484):57
Hermer-Vazquez L, Moffet A, Munkholm P (2001) Language, space, and the development of cognitive flexibility in humans: the case of two spatial memory tasks. Cognition 79(3):263–299
Kosslyn SM, Pick HL Jr, Fariello GR (1974). Cognitive maps in children and men. Child Dev 707–716
Lee SA, Spelke ES (2008) Children’s use of geometry for reorientation. Dev Sci 11(5):743–749
Lee SA, Spelke ES (2010) Two systems of spatial representation underlying navigation. Exp Brain Res 206(2):179–188
Lee SA, Spelke ES (2011) Young children reorient by computing layout geometry, not by matching images of the environment. Psychon Bull Rev 18(1):192–198
Lee SA, Sovrano VA, Spelke ES (2012) Navigation as a source of geometric knowledge: young children’s use of length, angle, distance, and direction in a reorientation task. Cognition 123(1):144–161
O’Keefe J, Nadel L (1978). The hippocampus as a cognitive map. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Gianni, E., Lee, S.A. (2018). Defining Spatial Boundaries: A Developmental Study. In: Fogliaroni, P., Ballatore, A., Clementini, E. (eds) Proceedings of Workshops and Posters at the 13th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT 2017). COSIT 2017. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63946-8_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63946-8_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-63945-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-63946-8
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)