The Development of Perspective-Taking Ability in Children

Abstract

The study reported in this paper traced the nature of the changes which take place as the child gradually acquires perspective-taking skills. The results indicate that at first the young child can correctly represent only the location of the object nearest another observer; later, he can correctly represent a before-behind relationship between objects as seen by another observer; last, he can represent a left-right relationship between objects as seen by another observer. Nevertheless, left right errors are still made by many 10year-olds; Piaget and Inhelder's notion that perspective-taking ability is fully developed by this age is too optimistic.

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References

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