Cognitive Maps in Children and Men

KOSSLYN, STEPHEN M.; PICK, HERBERT L., JR.; and FARIELLO, GRIFFIN R. Cognitive Maps in Children and Men. CmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1974, 45, 707-716. This experiment examined factors which systematically distort children's and adults' memory for spatial relations. Children and adults learned where a set of objects belonged in an experimental space. The space was divided into quadrants by 2 transparent and 2 opaque barriers. After learning where the objects belonged, Ss ranked from memory the distances between all pairs of objects. Cognitive maps then were reconstructed by applying multidimensional scaling techniques to these data. Children perceived objects separated by both types of barriers as farther apart than objects separated by the same distance with no barrier. Adults' perception, in contrast, seemed distorted only in the case where objects were separated by opaque barriers. A distance with an interposed opaque barrier was perceived by the adults as greater than the same distance with a transparent barrier or no barrier.