Lehnung M, Leplow B, Friege L, Herzog A, Ferstl R, Mehdorn M
Department of Psychology, University of Kiel, Germany.
Br J Psychol. 1998 Aug;89 ( Pt 3):463-80. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1998.tb02697.x.
The present study addresses the question of what kind of information children use when orientating in new environments, if given proximal and distal landmarks, and how spatial memory develops in the investigated age groups. Ten 5-year-old, ten 7-year-old and ten 10-year-old children were presented with the 'Kiel Locomotor Maze', containing features of the Radial Arm Maze and the Morris Water Maze, in order to assess spatial memory and orientation. Children had to learn to approach baited locations only. Task difficulty was equated with respect to the children's age. Training was given until the children reached criterion. During testing, the maze configuration and response requirements were systematically altered, including response rotation, cue rotation, cue deletion and response rotation with cue deletion in order to assess the spatial strategies used by the children. During training and testing, working-memory errors (WM), reference-memory errors (RM) and working-reference memory errors (WR) were recorded. As expected, no difference between age groups appeared during training, thus confirming comparable task difficulty across age groups. During testing, age groups differed significantly with regard to the orientation strategy used. The 5-year-olds were bound to a cue strategy, orientating towards local, proximal cues. The 10-year-olds mastered all tasks, thus displaying a place strategy, being able to use distal cues for orientation, and were even able to do so after being rotated 180 degrees. The 7-year-olds proved to be at an age of transition: five of them were bound to a cue strategy, five children were able to adopt a place strategy. The differences in the orientation strategies used by children of different age groups was reflected by the sum of errors they made, also by RM. WM were found to be rare, especially in older children. We conclude that preschoolers use a cue strategy, that the development of place strategies occurs during primary school age and seems to be complete by the age of 10 years.
如果给儿童提供近端和远端地标，他们在新环境中定向时会使用何种信息，以及在所研究的年龄组中空间记忆是如何发展的。为了评估空间记忆和定向能力，我们让10名5岁、10名7岁和10名10岁的儿童参与了“基尔运动迷宫”实验，该迷宫融合了放射状臂迷宫和莫里斯水迷宫的特点。孩子们只需学习找到有诱饵的位置。任务难度根据孩子们的年龄进行了调整。训练一直持续到孩子们达到标准。在测试过程中，迷宫的布局和反应要求被系统地改变，包括反应旋转、线索旋转、线索删除以及线索删除时的反应旋转，以便评估孩子们所采用的空间策略。在训练和测试过程中，记录了工作记忆错误（WM）、参考记忆错误（RM）和工作-参考记忆错误（WR）。正如预期的那样，在训练期间各年龄组之间没有差异，从而证实了各年龄组的任务难度相当。在测试期间，各年龄组在使用的定向策略方面存在显著差异。5岁的孩子依赖线索策略，朝着局部的、近端的线索定向。10岁的孩子掌握了所有任务，因此展示出一种位置策略，能够利用远端线索进行定向，甚至在被旋转180度后仍能如此。7岁的孩子处于过渡阶段：其中5人依赖线索策略，5名孩子能够采用位置策略。不同年龄组孩子所使用的定向策略差异反映在他们所犯错误的总和上，RM也是如此。发现WM很少见，尤其是在年龄较大的孩子中。我们得出结论，学龄前儿童使用线索策略，位置策略的发展发生在小学阶段，并且在10岁时似乎已经完成。
