Unit for Visually Impaired People, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, 16163, Genova, Italy.
Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Translational Neuroengineering, EPFL, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Sci Rep. 2023 Apr 20;13(1):6427. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-33127-w.
Young children and adults process spatial information differently: the former use their bodies as primary reference, while adults seem capable of using abstract frames. The transition is estimated to occur between the 6th and the 12th year of age. The mechanisms underlying spatial encoding in children and adults are unclear, as well as those underlying the transition. Here, we investigated the role of the subjective straight-ahead (SSA), the body antero-posterior half-plane mental model, in spatial encoding before and after the expected transition. We tested 6-7-year-old and 10-11-year-old children, and adults on a spatial alignment task in virtual reality, searching for differences in performance when targets were placed frontally or sideways. The performance differences were assessed both in a naturalistic baseline condition and in a test condition that discouraged using body-centered coordinates through a head-related visuo-motor conflict. We found no differences in the baseline condition, while all groups showed differences between central and lateral targets (SSA effect) in the visuo-motor conflict condition, and 6-7-year-old children showed the largest effect. These results confirm the expected transition timing; moreover, they suggest that children can abstract from the body using their SSA and that the transition underlies the maturation of a world-centered reference frame.
前者主要使用身体作为参考，而成年人似乎能够使用抽象框架。据估计，这种转变发生在 6 至 12 岁之间。儿童和成人的空间编码机制以及转变背后的机制尚不清楚。在这里，我们研究了主观正前方（SSA）在预期转变前后的空间编码中的作用，以及身体前-后半平面心理模型的作用。我们在虚拟现实中对 6-7 岁和 10-11 岁的儿童以及成年人进行了空间对齐任务的测试，在目标放置在正面或侧面时，评估了表现上的差异。在自然基线条件和测试条件下评估了性能差异，在测试条件下，通过与头部相关的视动冲突来阻止使用以身体为中心的坐标。我们在基线条件下没有发现差异，而所有组在视动冲突条件下都显示出中央和侧面目标之间的差异（SSA 效应），6-7 岁的儿童表现出最大的效应。这些结果证实了预期的转变时间；此外，它们表明，儿童可以使用 SSA 从身体中抽象出来，并且转变是世界中心参考框架成熟的基础。
