Christopher Spencer

Do children try to answer nonsensical questions

Previous researchers found that young children will try to answer nonsensical questions. In Expt 1, 5- to 8-year-olds were asked sensible and nonsensical questions. Half of each type were ‘closed’ questions (which required a yes/no response), and half were ‘open’ questions (which could be answered in several ways). Three weeks later the same children were asked to judge if the questions were sensible or silly. Children answered all the sensible questions appropriately, and only attempted to answer a small proportion of the nonsensical open questions. However, they did try to answer three-quarters of the nonsensical closed questions. Nonetheless, children were nearly always correct in judging which questions were sensible and which were nonsensical. In Expt 1 all the closed nonsensical questions were also ones that required a comparison between two items. In Expt 2 we compared childrens responses to nonsensical open and closed questions when half of each type were comparative and half were non-comparative. Children attempted to answer nonsensical closed questions irrespective of whether or not they included a comparison. However, few children attempted to answer nonsensical open questions. We discuss the implications of these results for questioning children and in the context of childrens eyewitness testimony.

The Construction of Cognitive Maps by Children with Visual Impairments

The way in which children who have visual impairments construct cognitive maps of their environment is of considerable theoretical and practical importance. It sheds light on the role of sensory experience in the development of spatial cognition which can in turn suggest how spatial skills might be nurtured in visually impaired children. In most of the studies reviewed here, groups of children who lost their sight early in life perform less well on a variety of spatial tasks than sighted children or children who lost their sight later in life. We will argue that it is not the lack of visual experience in itself which produces this pattern, but rather the effect of lack of vision on the spatial coding strategies adopted by the children. Finally we will discuss a number of methods for encouraging visually impaired children to use coding systems which are appropriate for the construction of flexible and integrated cognitive maps, with particular reference to the use of tactile maps.

Mapping as a Cultural and Cognitive Universal

Abstract We hypothesize that nearly all humans, in all cultures, acquire the ability to read and use map-like models in very early childhood, and that this ability is a fundamental part of human ecological adaptation, comparable in many ways to tool use. Evidence pertaining to this theory should be sought in three kinds of research: studies in differing cultures of the development of young childrens ability to use map-like models; studies probing for evidence of map-like modeling across the ethnographic spectrum; and studies probing for evidence of the use of map-like models in prehistory. We are pursuing all three lines of research. However, our main focus thus far has been on the developmental dimension of the problem. Here, we report evidence that supports the universality hypothesis from seven empirical studies carried out on mapping abilities of three- to five-year-old children in several Western and non-Western cultures; we offer a general ecological theory of the development of mapping abilities, a theory that appears to explain the evidence elicited and accords with the universality hypothesis; and we discuss the implications of this work for early childhood education.

Children describe their experiences of the city centre: a qualitative study of the fears and concerns which may limit their full participation

Abstract A large‐scale qualitative study of the views of British 10–12 years olds is reported. The focus is on childrens perceptions of their local urban centres, and in particular on the concerns and fears that they have about using the centres. It is argued that, in the context of the debate about such centres retaining business in the face of the challenge from out‐of‐town malls, designers should be more aware of the comparisons that such children draw between the two, not only for the current and future purchasing power of children, but also in the spirit of wider participation in the planning of our urban areas. Children of this age can give vivid accounts of their perceived threats, from some adults on the street, from older adolescents, and from groups from out of town. Children from the smaller towns more typically stress traffic as their major concern. Poor standards of maintenance may signal that no‐one cares. Agents of order, such as police, security guards and the presence of older people on ...

Mental Rotation of a Tactile Layout by Young Visually Impaired Children

Mental rotation tasks have been used to probe the mental imagery both of sighted and of visually impaired people. People who have been blind since birth display a response pattern which is qualitatively similar to that of sighted people but tend to respond more slowly or with a higher error rate. It has been suggested that visually impaired people code the stimulus and its (or their own) motion in a different way from sighted people—in particular, congenitally blind people may ignore the external reference framework provided by the stimulus and surrounding objects, and instead use body-centred or movement-based coding systems. What has not been considered before is the relationship between different strategies for tactually exploring the stimulus and the response pattern of congenitally blind participants. Congenitally blind and partially sighted children were tested for their ability to learn and recall a layout of tactile symbols. Children explored layouts of one, three, or five shapes which they then attempted to reproduce. On half the trials there was a short pause between exploring and reproducing the layouts. In an aligned condition children reproduced the array from the same position at which they had explored it; in a rotated condition children were asked to move 90° round the table between exploring and reproducing the layout. Both congenitally blind and partially sighted children were less accurate in the rotated condition than in the aligned condition. Five distinct strategies used by the children in learning the layout were identified. These strategies interacted with both visual status and age. We suggest that the use of strategies, rather than visual status or chronological age, accounts for differences in performance between children.

The case for developing a cognitive environmental psychology that does not underestimate the abilities of young children

Both developmental and environmental psychology, where influenced by the work of Piaget, tend to have underestimated the environmental skills and potential of young children. This paper argues that what is needed is a cognitive environmental psychology which derives from observations of young childrens real-life behaviour in their everyday environment, as well as from the laboratory-based studies which predominate in the field. Much of the present evidence on young childrens capabilities in cognitive mapping and other locational skills comes from studies by geographers and educationalists; whereas psychologists have concentrated in their small-scale laboratory studies upon the processes whereby the child learns and uses information about the physical environment. Combining findings from both laboratory and large-scale settings, it is now possible to describe a developmental sequence; although many more naturalistic as well as experimental studies are needed.

The role of tactile maps in mobility training

Tactile maps can have both immediate and long term benefits in helping visually impaired children to find their way through their environment and to acquire spatial abilities. In a series of studies (1991-92), reported in this article, the authors established that young visually impaired children can understand and use tactile maps. The children adopted a variety of strategies for acquiring information from a map, some of which were more effective than others. In the final study, it was established that training in a simple strategy can improve childrens performance in a map task.

The Development of 3- to 6-Year-Olds' Map Using Ability: The Relative Importance of Landmarks and Map Alignment

Previous research (e.g., Bluestein & Acredolo, 1979) has demonstrated that children as young as 3 or 4 years of age can use simple maps, if the maps are aligned, and has suggested that when such young children use a map, they rely on the information provided about landmarks. The support for this suggestion, however, comes from research with older children. Our experiment was designed to find out how 3- to 6-year-olds used a map and whether they could use maps that were not aligned. The children were asked to find a hidden toy in a mapped layout that showed the toys position and included a single landmark. The maps were either aligned or rotated 90 degrees, 180 degrees, or 270 degrees relative to the layout. The results showed that young children could use the maps, even when they were not aligned with the layout, and that they relied on landmark information to do so.

The child as citizen: Experiences of British town and city centres

The current state of town and city centres in the UK is a matter of growing concern for a range of professionals and politicians. In general, recent studies about town and city centres have not concentrated on the experiences of users and potential users. A 27‐month research project which investigated young peoples use and perception of their town and city centres in the UK was undertaken at the University of Sheffield. Over 2000 young people were involved with questionnaires and focus groups and this paper reports, from the qualitative work, on towns and the developing child, the developing civic identity, civic values, towns as resources and who the town is for, together with implications and conclusions from the work. Young people are significant users of their town and city centres and yet they feel that they will not be heard and their opinions not valued.

The Development of Iconic Mapping Ability in Young Children.

Are young, pre-operational children as limited in their ability to take perspective as their performance in Piaget and Inhelders (1956) three mountains task suggests? Research using this paradigm has been reviewed by Kurdek (1978) and Liben (1978); and these authors conclude that the task is only fully mastered at adolescence, although the task is made easier by the use of less complex arrays of familiar objects: even preschoolers are successful on these tasks, and it would seem that the nature of developmental trends in childrens perceptual perspective taking is very much contingent upon the stimulus array involved. One type of stimulus array which has been employed by geographers investigating this area, but seldom referred to in the developmental psychology literature, is the aerial photograph. We argue that, by presenting preschool children with tasks which involve recognition rather than performance, one can demonstrate that young children have considerable ability to view and interpret the world from a far-from-egocentric perspective. The recognition of objects and geographical areas when presented in an aerial photograph involves rotation from a horizontal to an orthogonal view of the landscape, reduction in scale, and abstraction to semi-iconic signs; and these, it can be argued, are the skills which are developed as the child acquires, respectively, shape constancy, size constancy and a generalized pattern recognition ability. Indeed, so essential are these operations that one could predict that young children should not only be able to interpret aerial photographs, but also be able to work with cartographic maps, once some of their conventions were explained: the cartographic map sharing with the aerial photograph the transformations of projection and reduced