ERIC Number: EJ890917
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010-Nov
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-0965
EISSN: N/A
The Relationship between the Perception of Axes of Symmetry and Spatial Memory during Early Childhood
Ortmann, Margaret R.; Schutte, Anne R.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, v107 n3 p368-376 Nov 2010
Early in development, there is a transition in spatial working memory (SWM). When remembering a location in a homogeneous space (e.g., in a sandbox), young children are biased toward the midline symmetry axis of the space. Over development, a transition occurs that leads to older children being biased away from midline. The dynamic field theory (DFT) explains this transition in biases as being caused by a change in the precision of neural interaction in SWM and improvements in the perception of midline. According to the DFT, young children perceive midline, but there is a quantitative improvement in the perception of midline over development. In the experiment reported here, children and adults needed to determine on which half of a large monitor a target was located. In support of the DFT, even the youngest children performed above chance at most locations, but performance also improved gradually with age. (Contains 3 figures and 1 note.)
Descriptors: Young Children, Short Term Memory, Child Development, Spatial Ability, Memory, Age Differences, Comparative Analysis, Perception, Visual Stimuli, Correlation, Geometry, Child Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Bias
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A