Coding location: the view from toddler studies

The ability to locate objects in the environment is adaptively important for mobile organisms. Research on location coding reveals that even toddlers have considerable spatial skill. Important information has been obtained using a disorientation task in which children watch a target object being hidden and are then blindfolded and rotated so they cannot track their changing relation to the target. Even toddlers under two years of age search successfully for the hidden object, which shows that they can use geometric features of the spatial environment to determine object location. It has been claimed that these results show innate geometric abilities, but there is evidence that these early spatial skills are not simply geometric. The article presents an overview of experimental findings that provide the basis for a different interpretation of spatial development.