The Development of Visual and Kinaesthetic Judgements of Distance

Three groups, each of 36 children, aged 4, 6 and 8 years, performed visual and kinaesthetic intra‐ and cross‐modal matching tasks in three experimental conditions of simultaneous or successive visual inputs in an age x conditions x modality design. Stimuli were lengths with specific relations to a total distance. No effect of simultaneous versus successive experimental conditions was found. Age, modality and the interaction between age and modality were significant effects. For 8‐ and 6‐year‐olds highest errors were on the kinaesthetic–visual (K–V) task; for 4‐year‐olds visual–kinaesthetic (V–K) and intra‐kinaesthetic (K–K) errors were significantly higher than all others. To test if differences in error patterns could be explained by poor movement control by 4‐year‐olds, data for subjects selected on intra‐kinaesthetic performance were subjected to a second analysis. An age x modality analysis on subjects selected on K–K showed that age, modality and the interaction between age and modality were again significant effects. K–K errors for the 4‐year group were now significantly lower than V–K errors, and not different from K–V. V–K errors had not been affected by the selection on K–K and were significantly higher than V–V, and than K–V errors. The cross‐modal asymmetry (V–K > K–V errors) was thus not due to kinaesthetic response errors. K–V was only slightly and not significantly higher than V–V at the 4‐year level. This error pattern contrasted with those found for 6‐ and 8‐year‐olds where K–V, not V–K errors, were highest and significantly different from V–V errors. The implications of the results for theories of cross‐modal performance are discussed, and an explanation is suggested

Cognitive psychology · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Art Education and Development · Creativity in Education and Neuroscience · Psychology

• Human information processing and sensory modality

  David Freides•Psychological Bulletin•1974

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