Rigal R
Département de Kinanthropologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada.
Percept Mot Skills. 1994 Dec;79(3 Pt 1):1259-78. doi: 10.2466/pms.1994.79.3.1259.
Right-left orientation includes discrimination and recognition as well as identification, the former two differentiating between symmetrical cues and the latter using the words right and left. In the present experiment involving 406 children, the evolution of the knowledge and use of the concepts of right and left were assessed. Discrimination and recognition on all tasks used in this study are mastered much earlier than verbal identification, and, at even 11 years of age, half of the subjects of the present study still did not apply the words right and left properly onto other persons in the milieu. Children use the words right and left correctly first on their own bodies as early as seven years of age, then on people facing away, and finally on people facing them around eight to nine years of age. This transition most probably reflects the slow evolution of cognitive processes which determine the way the child will use internal or external frameworks as well as the passage from egocentrism to "alteregocentrism" with ability to consider other viewpoints than one's own.
左右定向包括辨别、识别以及确认，前两者是区分对称线索，后者是使用“右”和“左”这两个词。在本次涉及406名儿童的实验中，评估了左右概念的知识和运用的发展情况。本研究中使用的所有任务的辨别和识别比言语确认掌握得要早得多，而且，即使到了11岁，本研究中的一半受试者仍然不能正确地将“右”和“左”这两个词应用于周围环境中的其他人身上。儿童早在7岁时就能在自己身体上正确使用“右”和“左”这两个词，然后在背向他们的人身上使用，最后在8到9岁左右在面向他们的人身上使用。这种转变很可能反映了认知过程的缓慢发展，认知过程决定了儿童使用内部或外部框架的方式，以及从自我中心主义到“他人自我中心主义”的转变，即有能力考虑除自己之外的其他观点。
