Wayfinding in Children: Developmental Pathways, Supporting Cognitive Processes, and Gender Differences

寻路对日常生活至关重要。虽然它在童年早期就开始发展，但掌握是在不同年龄实现的，并且在性别，神经学特征和其他特征方面，儿童实现掌握的途径不同。虽然一般的途径被很好地描述，如何异质性儿童发展有助于掌握是不太了解。该项目通过研究具有不同社会和人口特征的儿童如何发展，提供了一个更完整的儿童寻路发展认知模型。该项目有助于扩大为少数群体服务的机构的研究能力，培训来自代表性不足人口的研究生和本科生，并向学术界和公众广泛传播成果。本研究围绕以下四个问题展开：1）寻路技能的发展是分阶段的，还是以重叠或平行的方式进行的？2)虚拟现实寻路技能在生态有效的环境中如何捕捉寻路的发展？3)儿童的语言和空间过程在寻路技能的发展中扮演什么角色？4)性别和其他社会和人口特征在发展过程中如何展开寻路过程中发挥了什么作用？为了研究这些问题，研究人员招募了6-10岁的儿童，他们具有不同的社会和人口背景，在虚拟现实和现实环境中完成寻路任务。儿童进一步完成一系列认知任务，测量语言和空间技能，使调查人员能够检查社会人口特征和语言，空间和寻路发展之间的关系。该研究提供了一个急需的，全面的了解发展的生活技能，是至关重要的日常运作跨越生计domains.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

Wayfinding is critical to everyday existence. Although it begins to develop early in childhood, mastery is achieved at different ages and the pathways by which mastery is achieved differ among children in relation to gender, neurological profiles, and other characteristics. While general pathways are well described, how heterogeneity in child development contributes to mastery is less understood. This project provides a more complete cognitive model of wayfinding development in children by studying how it develops among children with diverse social and demographic characteristics. The project contributes to broadening capacity for research at a minority-serving institution, trains graduate and undergraduate students from under-represented populations, and disseminates results broadly to academic and public audiences. This project centers on four research questions: 1) Do wayfinding skills develop sequentially in stages or in overlapping or parallel ways? 2) How well do virtual-reality wayfinding skills capture the development of wayfinding in ecologically valid environments? 3) What roles do verbal and spatial processes in children play in the development of wayfinding skills? 4) What roles do gender and other social and demographic characteristics play in how wayfinding unfolds across development? To investigate these questions, the investigators recruit children from ages 6-10 with varying social and demographic backgrounds to complete wayfinding tasks in virtual-reality and real-life environments. The children further complete a series of cognitive tasks that measure verbal and spatial skills that allow investigators to examine the relationships among socio-demographic characteristics and verbal, spatial, and wayfinding development. The research provides a much-needed, holistic understanding of the development of a life skill that is critical to ordinary functioning across livelihood domains.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.