Five-Year-Olds’ Use of Geometric and Featural Information in Virtual Space Representation

Objectives: This study investigated how five-year-old children utilized geometric information (e.g., length and angle) and non-geometric, featural information (e.g., color) to represent a virtual space.Methods: Seventy-eight five-year-old children participated in the study. After exploring the virtual rooms, they were asked to choose a model that accurately represented these rooms and to identify a position in the model that corresponded to the location of an object within the virtual rooms.Results: First, children’s use of geometric and featural information varied depending on the geometric shape of the virtual space. Second, when geometric and featural information conflicted in representing locations, children identified the positions of objects based on featural information. Third, children who received perspective-shift training performed better in spatial representation tasks requiring geometric information, such as angle.Conclusion: This study shows that five-year-old children's use of geometric and featural information in representing virtual space is influenced by the shape of the space, with featural information also playing a significant role. The findings support the adaptive combination theory, which posits that children flexibly combine geometric and featural information in spatial representation. Additionally, the study indicates that perspective-shift training, involving a vertical viewpoint, can enhance children's spatial representation abilities.