AREA JUDGMENT FROM WIDTH AND HEIGHT INFORMATION - THE CASE OF THE RECTANGLE

We assessed the effect on performance of shifting from a perceptual ar ea judgment situation, in which the physical quantity to be judged (th e area) is present in the stimulus, to a situation in which it is not present in the stimulus. Adults, 9-year-olds, and 5-year-olds were sho wn combinations of horizontal and vertical lines of various sizes, pre sented on the same wall or on different walls, and asked to estimate t he corresponding area. The following main results were obtained (a) Wh en width and height information items were completely separated, 5- an d 9-year-old children gave the same weight to both dimensions in their estimations; (b) when width and height information items were on two different walls, adults gave a greater weight to the larger dimension; (c) when width and height were joined, 9-year-old children gave a gre ater weight to the larger dimension but when they were separated, they did not. (C) 1998 Academic Press.