Cornell E H, Heth C D
J Exp Psychol Hum Learn. 1979 Mar;5(2):188-96.
Two cross-setional studies examined how infants learn the location of visual events. In Experiment 1, infants of 4, 8, and 12 mo of age learned to turn one way to view a novel pattern. In a subsequent transfer task, they were rotated to face the opposite side of the room. The 4-mo-old infants tended to err by repeating their previously learned response, but within 16-20 trials their performance was comparable to the higher levels maintained by the older infants. These results suggest that young infants learn the location of the pattern primarily in terms of response cues, whereas older infants employ both response cues and place cues. Experiment 2 was designed to independently assess the use of response cues and place cues by infants of 4, 8, 12, and 16 mo of age. All infants were able to rapidly learn and remember the location of the novel pattern when they were given response cues. There was a gradual emergence of place-cue use associated with age. It is suggested that the decrease in infant egocentricity in such spatial localization tasks may in fact reflect an age-related increase in the variety of reliable cues responded to by infants.
两项横断面研究考察了婴儿如何学习视觉事件的位置。在实验1中，4个月、8个月和12个月大的婴儿学会向一侧转动以观看一个新图案。在随后的迁移任务中，他们被旋转至面对房间的另一侧。4个月大的婴儿往往会重复之前学到的反应而犯错，但在16 - 20次试验内，他们的表现与较大婴儿保持的较高水平相当。这些结果表明，小婴儿主要根据反应线索来学习图案的位置，而较大婴儿则同时运用反应线索和位置线索。实验2旨在独立评估4个月、8个月、12个月和16个月大的婴儿对反应线索和位置线索的运用。当给所有婴儿反应线索时，他们都能快速学习并记住新图案的位置。与年龄相关，位置线索的运用逐渐出现。有人提出，在这类空间定位任务中婴儿自我中心性的降低实际上可能反映了婴儿对各种可靠线索反应的与年龄相关的增加。
