TRANSFER IN YOUNG CHILDRENS UNDERSTANDING OF SPATIAL REPRESENTATIONS

The creative and flexible use of symbols is a unique human ability. In order to use a symbol, one must understand the basic relation between the symbol and what it represents. How do young children come to appr eciate such relations? One possibility is that insight into one symbol ic relation helps children appreciate different ones. The 3 studies pr esented here support this possibility. In Experiments 1 and 2, both 2. 5- and 3.0-year-old children showed transfer from an easy task that re quired appreciation of a model-room symbolic relation to a more diffic ult one, one that children their age typically do not appreciate. In E xperiment 3, 2.5-year-olds showed transfer between symbol types: Exper ience with a model-room relation helped them appreciate a map-room rel ation. These transfer effects are consistent with the claim that early experience with symbolic relations contributes to symbolic sensitivit y, a basic readiness to recognize that one object or event may stand f or another.