TY - JOUR
T1 - Children's use of landmarks
T2 - Implications for modularity theory
AU - Learmonth, Amy E.
AU - Nadel, Lynn
AU - Newcombe, Nora S.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by grants from the Flinn Foundation and the McDonnell-Pew Cognitive Neuroscience Program awarded to Lynn Nadel. We would like to thank Josh Baker, Ryan Hendrix, and Amy Kaminski for help working with the parents and children participating in this research, and the parents and children themselves for their participation. We would also like to thank Elizabeth Spelke and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful and insightful comments.
PY - 2002/7
Y1 - 2002/7
N2 - Previous studies have shown that disoriented children use the geometric features of the environment to reorient, but the results have not consistently demonstrated whether children can combine such information with landmark information. Results indicating that they cannot suggest the existence of a geometric module for reorientation. However, results indicating that children can use geometric information in combination with landmark information challenge the modularity interpretation. An uncontrolled variable in the studies yielding conflicting results has been the size of the experimental space. In the present studies, which tested young children in spaces of two different sizes, the size of the space affected their ability to use available landmark information. In the small space, the children did not use the landmark to reorient, but in the large space they did. The ability of children to use landmarks in combination with geometric information raises important questions about the existence of an encapsulated geometric module.
AB - Previous studies have shown that disoriented children use the geometric features of the environment to reorient, but the results have not consistently demonstrated whether children can combine such information with landmark information. Results indicating that they cannot suggest the existence of a geometric module for reorientation. However, results indicating that children can use geometric information in combination with landmark information challenge the modularity interpretation. An uncontrolled variable in the studies yielding conflicting results has been the size of the experimental space. In the present studies, which tested young children in spaces of two different sizes, the size of the space affected their ability to use available landmark information. In the small space, the children did not use the landmark to reorient, but in the large space they did. The ability of children to use landmarks in combination with geometric information raises important questions about the existence of an encapsulated geometric module.
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U2 - 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2002.00461.x
DO - 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2002.00461.x
M3 - Article
C2 - 12137136
AN - SCOPUS:0036636932
SN - 0956-7976
VL - 13
SP - 337
EP - 341
JO - Psychological Science
JF - Psychological Science
IS - 4
ER -