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Kindergartners, second, and fifth graders made repeated trips through a large- or small-scale model town, and then constructed from memory the layout of buildings in either a large- or small-scale space. Accuracy of construction increased as a function of developmental level and repeated trips through the town. Children's constructions were most accurate when they were tested in the same-scale environment as that in which they developed their spatial knowledge; accuracy was impaired significantly only when children were exposed to a small space and then reconstructed in a large space. Results were interpreted in terms of a "competence-load trade-off."

2 studies were conducted to investigate developmental differences in the ability to select and use environmental landmarks for cognitively organizing distance information from a walk. In experiment 1, second-grade, fifth-grade, and college subjects viewed a simulated walk and selected scenes that were high in potential landmark value. In experiment 2, children from the same grade levels first viewed the walk and then ranked distances among either the test scenes most frequently selected by their peers or those selected most frequently by adults. Results indicated that (a) adults and children may not spontaneously select the same features as real-world landmarks; (b) children are less capable than adults in judging the value of potential landmarks as distance cues; and (c) the ability to use environmental landmarks as cues for distance information developmentally precedes the ability to assess this potential information value.

Young (mean age = 3-9) and old (mean age = 5-0) nursery school children were tested on their ability to infer spatial relationships in a large, familiar environment. Each child in the younger group was matched to a child of the same sex in the older group who had been attending the nursery school for the same number of months. Subjects were taken to 3 different locations in their nursery school and were asked to point to 5 targets on the school grounds. Older children were more accurate than younger children on nursery school targets, but children's spatial representations were relatively nonintegrated at both age levels. Consistent sex differences in favor of males were discussed in the context of a new framework that could potentially explain the appearance of sex differences on spatial tasks conducted in large-scale environments. It was concluded that very young children have difficulty inferring spatial relationships, even in a large, familiar environment. This difficulty seems to be due to a relative lack of symbolic capacity.

Kindergartners (means = 57) and third graders (means = 8-7) encountered a large model town in 1 of 3 conditions of motor involvement with the environment: standing, riding, or walking. Half the children in each motor condition were instructed to remember the location of the buildings (international memory), while the remaining children were not given specific memory instructions (incidental memory). Only the kindergartners' accuracy increased as a function of the amount of motor activity. There was no difference between intentional and incidental memory conditions. It was concluded that: (1) Kindergartners depend on motor activity more than third graders to learn about the location of objects in an unfamiliar environment; and (2) the complexity of the spatial task was primarily responsible for equivalent performance in the intentional and incidental memory conditions.

2 studies were conducted to investigate developmental differences in the ability to select and use environmental landmarks for cognitively organizing distance information from a walk. In experiment 1, second-grade, fifth-grade, and college subjects viewed a simulated walk and selected scenes that were high in potential landmark value. In experiment 2, children from the same grade levels first viewed the walk and then ranked distances among either the test scenes most frequently selected by their peers or those selected most frequently by adults. Results indicated that (a) adults and children may not spontaneously select the same features as real-world landmarks; (b) children are less capable than adults in judging the value of potential landmarks as distance cues; and (c) the ability to use environmental landmarks as cues for distance information developmentally precedes the ability to assess this potential information value.