Abstract
Previous research on the cognitive development of locatives by English speakers, spatial concepts such as in, on, between, over and across has focused primarily on young children’s understanding of relatively few locatives and only in small-scale spaces. Subsequently, these studies provide limited insight into the comprehension of locatives in general, the results are relevant to spatial relationships in only one spatial context, the studies provide little data about the development of spatial concept understanding beyond the childhood, and they therefore do not adequately address the relationship between spatial developmental theory and spatial concept understanding. In response, we examined the use of locatives in two spatial contexts: a tabletop layout and a large model space. Child (3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 years-old) and adult (control) participants placed, according to various instructions, objects within one of the two model spaces. This chapter focuses on one aspect of this study: locatives that have implicit reference to distance. We specifically explore the locatives NEXT, NEAR, AWAY and FAR in two spatial contexts. Results indicate that spatial context influences people’s conceptions of locatives.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry and Scholarship from the University of Minnesota (#16783) and from support from the University of Sheffield; support from the University of Minnesota and the University of Sheffield is gratefully acknowledged. We also acknowledge the hard work of Linda Peterson, Brea Hallman and Jennifer Ruzicka who spent many months collecting data for exp#1, and James Lehnhoff who collected data for exp#2.
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Freundschuh, S., Blades, M. (2013). The Cognitive Development of the Spatial Concepts NEXT, NEAR, AWAY and FAR. In: Raubal, M., Mark, D., Frank, A. (eds) Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34359-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34359-9_3
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