Hermer L, Spelke E S
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853.
Nature. 1994 Jul 7;370(6484):57-9. doi: 10.1038/370057a0.
Disoriented rats and non-human primates reorient themselves using geometrical features of the environment. In rats tested in environments with distinctive geometry, this ability is impervious to non-geometric information (such as colours and odours) marking important locations and used in other spatial tasks. Here we show that adults use both geometric and non-geometric information to reorient themselves, whereas young children, like mature rats, use only geometric information. These findings provide evidence that: (1) humans reorient in accord with the shape of the environment; (2) the young child's reorientation system is impervious to all but geometric information, even when non-geometric information is available and is re-presented by the child--such information should improve performance and is used in similar tasks by the oriented child; and (3) the limits of this process are overcome during human development.
迷失方向的大鼠和非人类灵长类动物会利用环境的几何特征重新定位自己。在具有独特几何形状的环境中接受测试的大鼠，这种能力不受标记重要位置并在其他空间任务中使用的非几何信息（如颜色和气味）的影响。我们在此表明，成年人会同时利用几何和非几何信息来重新定位自己，而幼儿，就像成年大鼠一样，只使用几何信息。这些发现提供了以下证据：（1）人类会根据环境的形状重新定位；（2）幼儿的重新定位系统除了几何信息外不受其他任何信息的影响，即使非几何信息可用且由儿童重新呈现——此类信息应能提高表现，并且定向儿童在类似任务中会使用；（3）在人类发育过程中，这一过程的局限性会被克服。
