Abstract
Individuals navigating a space use two
strategies: adults mainly use a ‘counting’ strategy (i.e. numbering or counting
the intersection in the town; memorising a series of left and right turns from
a given starting position), children rely more on a ‘response’ strategy (i.e.
using reference points or landmarks; turn after the blue building). A lot of
research into spatial cognition requires the use of virtual environments and
uses regular environments (‘Cartesian grids, Squareland or city-block raster’
(Hamburger and Knauff, 2011), ‘radial maze’ type (Astur, Tropp, Sava, Constable
and Markus, 2004), etc.) but few studies have focused on how children and
adolescents learn to memorise an itinerary in a less regular environment (Nys,
Gyselinck, Orriols and Hickmann, 2015). The originality of this work is to
understand how children and adolescents learn to memorise an itinerary in a
developmental perspective (participants aged 6 to 15 years old). The intention
is also to identify any development in the strategies when the children and
adolescents reproduce a route in two differently structured environments
(cities with a regular or irregular plan). The results of the first experiment,
conducted with V-Squarecity (a regular environment), show that the environment
does not require the employment of response strategies, but may give rise to
strategies for organising/storing spatial information (counting strategies). It
will also be shown that younger children use response strategies and that older
children develop counting strategies. The result of the second experiment,
conducted with V-Sinuouscity (an irregular environment), reveal the reduced use
of counting strategies. This work emphasises the need to take account of the
nature of simulated spaces during studies on spatial strategies.
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http://www.psychnology.org/File/PNJ13(1)/PSYCHNOLOGY_JOURNAL_13_1_DUROISIN.pdf