Perspective Taking: The Development of Two Components of Knowledge

Components of Knowledge. CI-LD DEVELOPMENT, 1976, 47, 103-109. The development of perspective taking was interpreted as 2 separate achievements: learning to coordinate spatial dimensions, and acquiring a general understanding of views. Kindergarten and secondgrade children were tested on 2 components of knowledge concerning views as well as on perspective-taking ability: (a) 1 observer has 1 unique view, and (b) 1 view cannot be seen from more than 1 position. The results indicated that understanding of 1 observer-i unique view appeared fairly early, that is, in kindergarten. The second component, different positions-different views, was not strongly evident until second grade and was influenced by the quality of the child's perspective taking on specific view-selection problems.