Zooming In on Spatial Scaling: Preschool Children and Adults Use Mental Transformations to Scale Spaces
Zooming In on Spatial Scaling: Preschool Children and Adults Use Mental Transformations to Scale Spaces
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DOI：
10.1037/a0035905
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发表时间：
2014-05-01
影响因子：
4
通讯作者：
Frick, Andrea
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Moehring, Wenke;Newcombe, Nora S.;Frick, Andrea
空间缩放是许多空间任务的重要先决条件，涉及对不同大小空间中的距离如何对应的理解。先前的研究已经发现了学龄前儿童对这种理解的证据;然而，所涉及的心理过程仍然不清楚。在本研究中，我们调查了儿童和成人是否使用心理转换来缩放空间距离。成年人和4- 5岁的儿童（N = 60）被要求使用地图来定位目标物体在一个更大的指涉空间上的触摸屏。参考空间的大小保持不变，但地图的大小系统地变化，导致7个缩放因子。随着比例因子的增加，反应时间和错误率呈线性增加，这表明每个年龄组的参与者都在心理上改变了地图的大小，以将其与所指对象进行比较，为儿童和成人的空间缩放中的模拟图像策略提供了证据。
Spatial scaling is an important prerequisite for many spatial tasks and involves an understanding of how distances in different-sized spaces correspond. Previous studies have found evidence for such an understanding in preschoolers; however, the mental processes involved remain unclear. In the present study, we investigated whether children and adults use mental transformations to scale distances in space. Adults and 4- and 5-year-old children (N = 60) were asked to use maps to locate target objects in a larger referent space on a touch screen. The size of the referent space was held constant, but the sizes of the maps were varied systematically, resulting in 7 scaling factors. A linear increase in response times and errors with increasing scaling factor suggested that participants of every age group mentally transformed the size of the map to compare it to the referent, providing evidence for an analog imagery strategy in children's and adults' spatial scaling.