| Abstract: | Five experiments investigated the young child's ability to retrieve a target after a change in the position of the child or the target. In Experiments I–IV 2- to 4-year-old children were rotated 90, 180, 270, or 360° about a stationary square table containing four identical hiding locations at each of the cardinal locations. The children tested performed this task significantly better than chance, but their errors reflected either their response biases in the absence of any information as to the location of the target, or the repetition of a response which had been successful in retrieving the target prior to the change in position. When the children were forced to respond rapidly, these errors increased significantly. In Experiment V a table top was rotated 90, 180, 270, or 360° in front of 3- to 10-year-old children. There were two cue situations. The child saw the rotation, or the child had to infer the rotation. Young children made errors of the types observed in Experiments I–IV. The ability to inhibit these errors increased with age. By 7 years of age performance was virtually perfect when the child could observe the change in position of the hidden object. The ability to infer the positional change developed more slowly and was good but not perfect at 10 years of age. |
