Spatial Perspective-Taking Errors in Children

Spatial perspective-taking was examined in 49 children between the ages of 3.3 and 10.9 yr. Participants completed (a) a screening test in which they matched pictures of a scene to the actual scene and (b) procedures designed to differentiate four types of spatial errors: left-right, before-behind, egocentric, and random. Among those who passed the screening test the most common mistake was to choose a picture that depicted a left-right reversal of the scene, and there were relatively few egocentric errors. Even our youngest group made mistakes on only 21% of the trials that tested for egocentric responses. The pattern of results implied that perspective reversals of left and right were the likely origin of many mistakes that have been interpreted as egocentric in previous research.