Selecting pictures of another person's view

Two Trends in the Development of Conceptual Perspective-taking: An Elaboration of the Passive-Active Hypothesis

Two developmental trends in conceptual perspective-taking are proposed and these proposals are used to frame a review of the perspective-taking literature. Perspective-taking competence is described in terms of children's understanding of relations between mental states and conditions that influence or determine mental states. The two proposed developmental trends are: (1) older children increasingly differentiate among the effects of conditions that determine mental states; and (2) children progress from understanding direct one-to-one relations between a determining condition and a mental state to understanding interactions in which one condition mediates the effects of another in producing a mental state.

Children's photograph selections and verbal reports in a spatial task

The tendency for children to select a photograph of their own view of a scene when asked to represent the view seen by another observer in a different position has been attributed to an egocentric view of the world. It seems likely, however, that the egocentric response need not necessarily be related to the question of sensitivity to the viewpoints of others. Rather, it may reflect the way in which children treat two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional arrays in mental-rotation tasks. In the present investigation, strong visual and verbal cues were given for correct selection of a photograph of another observer's view in a perspective-shift task. Justifications for choices were required. Whilst floor effects were seen with children 3 to 4 years old, the responses of 8-year olds polarised into a choice between the correct and egocentric view, as Freeman would predict. Verbal justifications for these choices were mainly in terms of appropriate content. After first selection, this chosen view was removed from the array. Two-thirds of children who had chosen egocentrically then went on to choose correctly on a second attempt. It is suggested that the egocentric response may form an easier alternative for the child, but that the provision of such an alternative may prevent the child from displaying the knowledge that he or she has.

The effects of a communication task upon the representation of depth relationships in young children's drawings

Attempts to represent the occlusion of a farther object by a nearer one are infrequent in young children's drawings. Instead they typically draw the objects side by side or one above the other. This does not appear to reflect a limitation of skill, but rather a concern with the array of objects per se as opposed to the child's own particular view. Two experiments are reported which attempt to assess children's ability to produce view-specific drawings by creating a context that clearly demands such drawings. In a "communication game," drawings were produced by one child so that another could identify the chair he had been sitting on. In a first experiment, compared to a control condition this game produced significantly more view-specific drawings from 7- and 8-year-olds, but not from 5- and 6-year-olds. A second experiment with 5- and 6-year-olds was also ineffective in promoting view-specific drawings at this age.

The question of childhood egocentrism: the co-ordination of perspectives in relation to operational thinking

To what extent is the concept of 'childhood egocentrism' valid? Piaget presents an account in which a child's ability to appreciate different points of view is intimately related to his capacity for operational thought. To examine this hypothesis, children aged from 3 to 7 years were presented with tasks requiring the co-ordination of visuo-spatial perspectives, and tests of operational thinking. Subjects in the pre-operational stage demonstrated an ability to co-ordinate viewpoints, but found certain forms of visuo-spatial problem relatively difficult. The significance of this for the concept of egocentrism and the analysis of role-taking is considered.