Helmholtz Research Institute, Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2010 Nov;107(3):337-50. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2010.05.010. Epub 2010 Jul 3.
Navigation in a complex environment can rely on the use of different spatial strategies. We have focused on the employment of "allocentric" (i.e., encoding interrelationships among environmental cues, movements, and the location of the goal) and "sequential egocentric" (i.e., sequences of body turns associated with specific choice points) strategies during navigation. To investigate the developmental pattern of these two strategies in school-aged children, we used a virtual reality paradigm in which the spontaneous or imposed use of both strategies could be assessed. Our results showed an increase in spontaneous use of the allocentric strategy and also an increase in reliance on environmental landmarks with age. Although a majority of the children spontaneously used the sequential egocentric strategy, all age groups performed above chance when the allocentric strategy was imposed. Altogether, our findings suggest that young children are able to employ an allocentric strategy but that the nature of this allocentric strategy changes progressively in a complex cognitive representation between 5 and 10 years of age.
在复杂环境中导航可以依赖于使用不同的空间策略。我们专注于在导航过程中使用“整体（即，对环境线索、运动和目标位置之间的关系进行编码）”和“连续自我中心（即，与特定选择点相关联的身体转动序列）”策略。为了研究这两种策略在学龄儿童中的发展模式，我们使用了虚拟现实范式，可以在其中评估这两种策略的自发或强制使用。我们的结果表明，自发使用整体策略的比例增加，并且随着年龄的增长，对环境地标物的依赖程度也增加。尽管大多数儿童自发地使用连续自我中心策略，但当强制使用整体策略时，所有年龄组的表现都超过了随机水平。总之，我们的发现表明，年幼的儿童能够使用整体策略，但这种整体策略的性质在 5 到 10 岁之间的复杂认知表现中逐渐变化。
