Poster #41 - Young Children's use of Visualization as a Problem-Solving Strategy

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Cognitive Process

Integrative Statement

Toddlers have a bias to believe that objects will fall straight down. For example, 2- and 3-year-olds predict that a ball traveling through criss-crossing tubes will land in the cup directly below, rather than at the end of the tube in which it was dropped (Hood, 1995) (Figure 1). There are many ways that toddlers can overcome this gravity bias, including looking at or physically examining the criss-crossing tubes before making predictions (Bascandziev & Harris, 2010; Joh, Jaswal, & Keen, 2011). Others have demonstrated that helping 2- and 3-year-olds visualize the ball traveling down the tube by telling them to “imagine” the ball falling down it, helped them make more correct predictions (Palmquist, Keen, & Jaswal, 2018).

It is unclear whether these interventions help toddlers develop strategies for overcoming the gravity bias. The current ongoing study was designed to explore this question using Hood’s apparatus. Two- and three-year-olds (N = 22; M = 36.95 months, SD = 3.77 months; 12 girls) participated in three blocks (instruction, test, and generalization) of 8 trials each in either an imagine or control condition. In the imagine instruction trials, an experimenter told children to “imagine the ball rolling down the tube” before predicting where it would land. In the control instruction trials, the experimenter simply asked children to predict where the ball would land. On test trials, children in both conditions received no instructions, and were simply asked to predict where the ball would land. On generalization trials, children in both conditions were asked to make predictions about three, rather than two, tubes. If children in the imagine condition use the instructions to develop a problem-solving strategy, they should make correct predictions on the test trials, and perhaps even extend that strategy to the generalization trials, while children in the control condition should not.

Thus far, children in the imagine condition (Minstruction = 4.0, SD = 2.76; Mtest = 5.17, SD = 2.82; Mgeneralization = 5.17, SD = 2.37) have not made more correct predictions than children in the control condition (Minstruction = 4.80, SD = 2.90; Mtest = 5.10, SD = 2.88; Mgeneralization = 4.30, SD = 3.23), t’s < 0.66, p’s > 0.477, suggesting that these instructions did not help children develop new strategies. However, sex and age play a role in children’s use of the imagine instructions (Figure 2). Indeed, sex predicts 46.9% of the variance in children’s responses on instruction trials, b = -3.67, p = 0.014 (Mboys = 5.85; Mgirls = 2.17). Although sex was no longer a significant predictor of children’s performance on test trials, age predicted 48% of the variance in children’s responses, b = 0.63, p = 0.013 (Mold = 6, Myoung = 2.67). Neither sex nor age significantly predicted children’s responses on generalization trials.

Taken together, these data suggest that individual differences affect how children process visualization instructions and that variation in spatial ability and memory may explain these differences (Linn & Peterson, 1985). Additional data collection will explore this hypothesis.

Authors

• Rebecca Jordan, Amherst College
  Presenting Author

• Carolyn Palmquist, Amherst College
  Non-Presenting Author