The development of map-reading skills.

The present study investigated the development of map-reading skills in kindergartners and second graders. The maps were read either inside or outside the space shown on the map, and they were either aligned with the space or rotated 90 degree or 180 degree. The current maps had only 1 landmark to establish the correspondence to the space. These impoverished maps allowed the examination of 2 variables not previously studied: the proximity of the target to the landmark (near vs. far) and the type of landmark (movable vs. fixed). Consistent with previous research, at both grades subjects were able to extract information from the maps to guide search. When the maps were rotated, the younger subjects made "egocentric" errors on the inside reading trials but not on the outside trials. At both grades, most errors preserved the near/far relation to the landmark. Thus, children extracted critical (near/far) information from the maps instead of creating a mental map which was then mentally projected in space.