This study investigated whether children's spatial recall performance shows three separable characteristics: (1) biases away from symmetry axes (geometric effects); (2) systematic drift over delays; and (3) biases toward the exemplar distribution experienced in the task (experience-dependent effects). In Experiment 1, the location of one target within each geometric category was varied. Children's responses showed biases away from a midline axis that increased over delays. In Experiment 2, multiple targets were placed within each category at the same locations used in Experiment 1. After removing geometric effects, 6-year-olds'--but not 11-year-olds'--responses were biased toward the average remembered location over learning. In Experiment 3, children responded to one target more frequently than the others. Both 6- and 11-year-olds showed biases toward the most frequent target over learning. These results provide a bridge between the performance of younger children and adults, demonstrating continuity in the processes that underlie spatial memory abilities across development.

中文翻译：

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空间回忆的基础过程中的发展连续性

本研究调查儿童的空间回忆表现是否表现出三个可分离的特征：（1）偏离对称轴（几何效应）；(2) 延迟的系统漂移；(3) 对任务中经历的样本分布的偏见（经验依赖效应）。在实验 1 中，每个几何类别中一个目标的位置是不同的。儿童的反应显示偏离中线轴的偏差随着延迟增加而增加。在实验 2 中，在每个类别中在实验 1 中使用的相同位置放置了多个目标。去除几何效应后，6 岁儿童——但不是 11 岁儿童——的反应偏向于平均记忆位置超过学习。在实验 3 中，儿童对一个目标的反应比其他目标更频繁。6 岁和 11 岁的孩子都表现出对最常见的学习目标的偏见。这些结果在年幼儿童和成人的表现之间架起了一座桥梁，证明了整个发展过程中空间记忆能力的基础过程的连续性。