Colorful successPreschoolers’ use of perceptual color cues to solve a spatial reasoning problem.docx

Colorful successPreschoolers’ use of perceptual color cues to solve a spatial reasoning problem.docx

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Colorfulsuccess:

Preschoolers,useofperceptualcolorcuestosolveaspatialreasoningproblem

AmyS.JohIntroduction

Spatialreasoningisanecessaryskillforeverydayactivity.Theabilitytopredictthemovementofobjectsandpeopleallowschildrentoreachforandlearnaboutobjects,navigatearoundtheirenvironment,andinteractwithotherpeopleintheirdailylives.Earlyindicatorsofspatialreasoningemergearound4monthsofage,wheninfantsbegintoshowanticipatorylookingandreachingbehaviors（Johnson,Amso,&Slemner,2003;vonHofsten,1980）.Spatialreasoningskillscontinuetodevelopover

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0022-0965/$-seefrontmatter©2012ElsevierInc.Allrightsreserved.http:

//dx.doi.org/!

0.1016/j.jecp.2012.06.012

LeighA.Spivey

DepartmentofPsychologyandNeuroscience,DukeUniversity,Durham,NC27708,USA

ARTICLEINFO

ABSTRACT

Articlehistory:

Received7February2012

Revised21June2012

Availableonline9August2012

Keywords:

Spatialreasoning

Perceptualcues

Problem-solvingskills

Strategyacquisitionandgeneralization

Limitationsofcueuse

Gravitybiaserrors

Spatialreasoning,acrucialskillforeverydayactions,developsgraduallyduringthefirstseveralyearsofchildhood.Previousstudieshaveshownthatperceptualinformationandproblemsolvingstrategiesarecriticalforsuccessfulspatialreasoninginyoungchildren.Here,wesoughttolinkthesetwofactorsbyexaminingchildren^useofperceptualcolorcuesandwhethertheiruseofsuchcueswouldleadtotheacquisitionofageneralproblemsolvingstrategy.Forty-eight3-year-oldswereaskedtopredictthetrajectoryofaballdroppedintooneofthreeintertwinedtubes.Childrenwhoreceivedadditionalperceptualcuesintheformofdistinctlycoloredtubessucceededtwiceasoftenasthosewhodidnotreceivethecues.Athirdgroupofchildrenwhoreceivedtheadditionalcuesononlythefirsthalfofthetesttrialssucceededwhilethecueswerepresentbutrevertedtomakingerrorsoncetheywereremoved.Thesefindingsdemonstratethatperceptualcolorcuesprovidepreschoolerswithanswerstospatialreasoningproblemsbutmightnotteachchildrenageneralstrategyforsolvingtheproblem.

©2012ElsevierInc.Allrightsreserved.thenextseveralyears,withchildrenmakingincreasinglyaccuratepredictionsaboutthetrajectoryofmovingobjects（Hood,1995）.

ThedevelopmentofspatialcognitioninpreschoolershasbeenstudiedextensivelyusingamanualsearchtaskdesignedbyHood（1995）.AsshowninFig.1,aballisdroppeddownoneofthreeintertwinedtubesandchildrenareaskedtodeterminewhereitwillemerge.Thecorrectanswercanbederivedbysimplyfollowingthepathofthetubeintowhichtheballwasdropped.However,untilapproximately4yearsofage,childrenexpecttheballtofallstraightdowneventhoughthearrangementofthetubesprecludessuchpossibilities.Youngerpreschoolerscontinuetomakethiserrorevenafterextensivetrainingandexperiencewiththeproblem.Hooddescribedthisbehaviorastheproductofagravitybias;whenfacedwithadifficultproblem,childrenresorttoadefaultassumptionthatobjectswillfallverticallyduetotheeffectsofgravity.Indeed,thepullofthegravitybiasissostrongthatevenolderchildrenareunabletoinhibittheirprepotent,gravity-drivenresponsesiftheirattentionistaxed（Hood,Wilson,&Dyson,2006）,andnonhumanprimatesanddogsmakesimilarmistakes（Hauser,Williams,Kralik,&Moskovitz,2001;Hood,Hauser,Anderson,&Santos,1999;Osthaus,Slater,&Lea,2003;Tomonaga,Imura,Mizuno,&Tanaka,2007）.Youngerpreschoolersavoidsucherrorsiftheyarefreedfromgravity-relatedconstraintsbysolvingtheproblemwithhorizontallyorientedtubesorreasoningaboutanupward-movingball（Hood,1998;Hood,Santos,&Fieselman,2000）,providingadditionalevidencethatchildren'sdifficultieswiththisspatialreasoningproblemstemfromagravitybias.

Recentstudieshaveinvestigatedtheconditionsunderwhichchildreninhibittheirgravity-drivenresponses.Thefindingssuggestthatperceptualinformationandproblemsolvingstrategiesplayimportantrolesinthedevelopmentofspatialcognition.Forexample,BascandzievandHarris（2011）presented3-year-oldswithadditionalvisualinformationaboutthetubemechanismbyremovingthe"chimneys"（showninFig.1asthegraypiecesconnectingthetubestotheframe）fromtheapparatusanddroppingtheballdirectlyintoanuncoveredtube.Thissubtlemodificationimprovedchildren'sperformancesignificantly—somuchsothatitallowedthemtomakecorrectpredictionsevenafterthechimneyswerereintroducedinlatertrials.Ratherthanincreasingtheavailabilityof

Fig.1.Threeplastictubeswerefittedintothetopandbottombracesoftheframeinadiagonalfashion,preventingaballdroppeddownanytubefromfallingstraightdown.Childrenwereinvitedtopredictthepathoftheballbyplacingacupundertheopeningfromwhichtheyexpectedtheballtoemerge.Forexample,iftheballwasdroppedintotheopeninglabeledA,thenthechildrenshouldplacethecupinLocationB（correctprediction）.LocationCrepresentsagravitybiaspredictioninwhichpreschoolersexpecttheballtofalldownverticallyregardlessofthepathcreatedbytheconnectedtube.

perceptualinformation,Joh,Jaswal,andKeen（2011）provided3-year-oldswithavisualimageryproblemsolvingstrategybyinstructingthemto"imaginetheballrollingdownthetube”beforeeachtrial.Childrenwhoreceivedthisinstructionmadetwiceasmanycorrectchoicescomparedwithchildrenincontrolconditionswhodidnotreceivesuchinstructions.Theseresultsshowedthatwithalittlehelp,youngchildrenareabletouseandbenefitfromavisualimagerystrategywhilesolvingdifficultspatialproblems.Similarly,BascandzievandHarris（2010）successfullyprovided3.5-year-oldswithavisualtracingproblemsolvingstrategybyaskingthemto**followthattubewithyoureyes".UnlikeJohandcolleagues,however,theypromptedthechildrentousethisstrategyononlytwopracticetrials;afterthetwopracticetrials,theystoppedremindingthechildrentousethestrategy.Theyfoundthatchildrencontinuedtoavoidmakinggravitybiaserrorsonsubsequenttrials,demonstratingtheeffectivenessofavisualtracingstrategyforchildrenlearningtoinhibitprepotentgravity-drivenresponses.

Thecurrentstudysoughttoextendthepreviousfindingsbylinkingtogetherperceptualcuesandproblemsolvingstrategies.Inparticular,weexaminedwhetherasalientperceptualcuesuchasthecolorofapathwaycouldfacilitatespatialreasoninginchildrenandwhetherchildren'suseofthecuecouldleadtotheadoptionofaneffective,generalizableproblemsolvingstrategy.Wepresentedchildrenwithcolorcuesbecauseofyoungchildren'sfamiliaritywithusingperceptualinformationfromcolor.Adultsfrequentlyquizchildrenaboutcolors（e.g.,"Whatcoloristheball?

"）,andchildrenwitnessotherpeopleusingcolortodescribeobjects（e.g.,"redball"）andlocations（e.g.,"infrontofthebluechair"）.Inparticular,childrenquicklylearnthatcolor,althoughnotinherentlyspatialinnature,canprovideimportantinformationabouteverydayspatialevents.Childrenaretaught,forexample,thatpedestrianswalkonthesidewalk,cyclistsrideinbikelanes,andmotoristsdriveontheroad;thethreepathwaysaredistinguishablebycolor（amongothercues）.Ifchildrenmustventureoutontotheroad,thentheyaretaughttoremaininthewhitecrosswalktoavoidmovingcars.

Furthermore,wepresentedchildrenwithcolorcuesbecausechildrenareadeptatdiscriminatingandusingcolorinformation.By4monthsofage,infantsshowadult-likeperceptualdiscriminationofprimarycolorssuchasred,yellow,andblue（Bornstein,Kessen,&Weiskopf,1976;Franklin&Davies,2004）.By4.5monthsofage,infantsuseinformationaboutcolor,inconjunctionwithotherfeaturessuchasshapeandpattern,toindividuateoneobjectfromanother（Needham,1998;Wilcox&Baillargeon,1998）.Between7.5and11.5monthsofage,infantslearntorelysolelyoncolorinformationtodiscriminateobjects（Wilcox,1999;Wilcox&Chapa,2004）.By1yearofage,infantscanusecolorcuestofindahiddenobjectinanotherwiseunmarkedroom（Bushnell,McKenzie,Lawrence,&Connell,1995）.By2yearsofage,childrensortandmatchobjectsbycoloreveniftheycannotverballylabeltheobjectsbycolor（Soja,1994）.Andataround3yearsofage,childrenshowashiftinpreferenceforcolorovershapewhenmakingsimilarityjudgmentsaboutgeometricfigures（Melkman,Koriat,&Pardo,1976）.

Thereweretwogoalsforthecurrentstudy.Thefirstgoalwastodeterminewhetherpreschoolersareabletouseperceptualcolorcuesinaspatialreasoningtask.Wetested3-year-oldsinataskadaptedfromHood's（1995）spatialreasoningtask.Anexperimenterheldaballaboveoneofthreeintertwinedtubesandaskedchildrentopredictwheretheythoughttheballwouldemergebyplacingacupunderoneofthetubestocatchit（thisgeneralprocedurewasalsousedbyJohetal.,2011）.However,ratherthanpresentingallparticipantswiththreevisuallyidenticaltubes,wepresentedsomechildrenwithvisuallydistincttubes.Thetubeswerered,yellow,andblue—primarycolorsthatareeasilydiscriminatedbytypicallydevelopingchildren.Ifchildrenareabletolearnthatthecolorofthetubesprovideshintsaboutwheretheballwillemerge,thentheparticipantswhocompletedthetaskwithcoloredtubesonall12testtrials（AllDistinctcondition）shouldoutpe