In everyday contexts, children must respond to both self-related constraints (their own skills and abilities) and environmental constraints (external obstacles and goals). How do young children simultaneously accommodate these to support skilled and flexible behaviour? We used walking in a complex environment as a testbed for two hypotheses. Hypothesis 1: children will accommodate the self-related constraint of high foot placement variability via dynamic scaling. Hypothesis 2: children will plan ahead, even in complex environments. In our task, 3- to 5-year-olds and adults walked over obstacle sequences of varying complexity. We measured foot placement around the first obstacle in the sequence. Hypothesis 1 was partially supported. In simple, single obstacle environments, children engaged in dynamic scaling like adults. Those with more variable foot placement left greater margins of error between the feet and the obstacle. However, in complex, multiple obstacle settings, children employed large, un-tailored margins of error. This parallels other multisensory tasks in which children do not rely on the relative variability of sensory inputs. Hypothesis 2 was supported. Like adults, children planned ahead for environmental constraints. Children adjusted foot placement around the first obstacle depending on the upcoming obstacle sequence. In doing so, they demonstrate surprisingly sophisticated planning. We, therefore, show that in the motor domain, even very young children simultaneously control both self-related and environmental constraints. This allows flexible, safe and efficient behaviour.

中文翻译：

---

注意您的步骤：学习在复杂环境中行走。

在日常情况下，儿童必须应对与自我相关的限制（他们自己的技能和能力）和环境限制（外部障碍和目标）。幼儿如何同时容纳这些以支持熟练和灵活的行为？我们使用在复杂环境中行走作为两个假设的试验台。假设1：儿童将通过动态缩放适应高脚位变异性的自相关约束。假设2：即使在复杂的环境中，孩子也会提前计划。在我们的任务中，3至5岁的成年人和成年人走过了各种复杂程度不同的障碍物序列。我们测量了序列中第一个障碍物附近的脚位置。假设1得到部分支持。在简单的单障碍环境中，儿童会像成年人一样进行动态缩放。那些脚的位置变化较大的人在脚和障碍物之间留有较大的误差范围。但是，在复杂的多障碍环境中，儿童会采用较大的，未经定制的误差范围。这与儿童不依赖于感官输入的相对可变性的其他多感官任务平行。假设2得到支持。像成年人一样，孩子们也提前计划了环境限制。孩子们根据即将到来的障碍物顺序调整了脚在第一个障碍物周围的位置。通过这样做，他们证明了令人惊讶的复杂计划。因此，我们表明，在运动领域，即使是很小的孩子也能同时控制自我相关和环境方面的限制。这允许灵活，安全和有效的行为。