Development of logical search and visual scanning in children.

Children at 5, 6, 7, and 8 years of age were told a story in which a doll traveled through a physical model of a house. The doll had a toy in one room and, then, three rooms after, discovered it to be missing. Tests were made of logical search (i.e., the tendency, when asked to find the toy, to restrict search to the critical area between the rooms). The presence of visual cues that marked the critical area was manipulated, and the visual scanning of these cues was monitored. Children in the two younger groups exhibited virtually no logical search either when cues were absent or present, 7-year-old children showed logical search only when cues were present, and 8-year-old children showed logical search both when cues were absent and present. In the cues-present conditions logical search was related to visual scanning of the cues.