Copying strategies for patterns by children and adults

In the present study, eve movements during the copying of a pattern were analyzed to compare visual strategies of adults and children. Subjects had to build an accurate copy of spatial block patterns. Tested variables were the incidence and the duration of ocular dwelling in the pattern area (where the pattern to be copied was located), the work area (where the copy was made), and the source area (where the blocks were that could be used for creating the copy). Furthermore, to unravel employed strategies, sequences of dwelled areas were investigated. Previous studies reported that adults employ repetitive visual scanning strategies to accomplish the task instead of strategies depending upon an internal representation. The present results show that the II children, within the ages of 7 to 12 years, made more eye movements and fixations of longer duration during copy tasks than the 11 adults. The visual strategies of the children were highly comparable to those of adults. Memory was restricted to one block, while color and location seemed to be remembered together.