TY - JOUR
T1 - Early map use as an unlearned ability
AU - Landau, Barbara
N1 - Funding Information:
*I thank L. R. Gleitman and E. Spelke for suggesting important revisions on previous versions of this paper; H. Gleitman for overall guidance in this project, and for commenting on earlier drafts of this paper; J. Hochberg for commenting on an earlier draft; and an anonymous reviewer for helpful suggestions regarding the data analysis in the paper. Kathy Feldman, Marcia Glicksman, and Lenora Knapp are thanked for aid in various stages of data collection and analysis. Portions of this paper were presented at the American Psychological Association Meetings in August, 1982, and a preliminary report of portions of Experiment 1 appears in Landau, Spelke and Gleitman (1984). This research was supported by a National Research Service Award to Barbara Landau, and a Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Grant from the National Foundation-March of Dimes to Lila R. Gleitman and Barbara Landau. Reprint requests should be sent to Barbara Landau, Department of Psychology, 315 Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, U.S.A.
PY - 1986/4
Y1 - 1986/4
N2 - Four experiments demonstrated that certain fundamental principles of map use can be accessed without any specific training. Results showed that a 4-year-old congenitally blind child with no previous map-use experience could use a 2-symbol map to directionally guide her locomotion in space, with successful location of objects in front of her, behind her, to her left, or to her right. She could do so under conditions where the map and space were aligned in front of her (canonical condition), and under various transformation conditions: sideways translation, front-behind translation, and vertical rotation. In these conditions, there was no straightforward spatial relationship between her position in space, and her represented position on the map; therefore, mental alignments of the map with external space were necessary. Control data from sighted children showed that, by 4 years, they too could interpret and use these maps. Analysis of the requirements of this simple map task suggests that a core of the knowledge required to use maps is a readily accessible product of a spatial knowledge system common to both the blind and sighted.
AB - Four experiments demonstrated that certain fundamental principles of map use can be accessed without any specific training. Results showed that a 4-year-old congenitally blind child with no previous map-use experience could use a 2-symbol map to directionally guide her locomotion in space, with successful location of objects in front of her, behind her, to her left, or to her right. She could do so under conditions where the map and space were aligned in front of her (canonical condition), and under various transformation conditions: sideways translation, front-behind translation, and vertical rotation. In these conditions, there was no straightforward spatial relationship between her position in space, and her represented position on the map; therefore, mental alignments of the map with external space were necessary. Control data from sighted children showed that, by 4 years, they too could interpret and use these maps. Analysis of the requirements of this simple map task suggests that a core of the knowledge required to use maps is a readily accessible product of a spatial knowledge system common to both the blind and sighted.
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U2 - 10.1016/0010-0277(86)90015-6
DO - 10.1016/0010-0277(86)90015-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 2424667
AN - SCOPUS:0022704815
SN - 0010-0277
VL - 22
SP - 201
EP - 223
JO - Cognition
JF - Cognition
IS - 3
ER -