| Abstract: | Children between the ages of 4 and 7 years were asked to select a photograph depicting the visual perspective of a puppet which was placed at various locations around a dollhouse in a modified version of Piaget and Inhelder's three-mountain task. A shielded condition was used for half of the children. Three types of errors were examined in relation to the shield condition, age, and type of vantage point (views from the corners and from the sides). Shielding of the stimulus array reduced egocentric errors among 4-year-olds, producing a pattern of responses more typical of that observed among older children. Increasing specificity in perspective role-taking with age was indicated by changes in error patterns. Finally, the task was more difficult on trials with corner views, particularly when the child's own view included some of the cues present in the puppet's perspective. |
