Mind-Bending Geometry: Children's and Adults' Intuitions about Linearity on Spheres

Autor/inn/en	Huey, Holly; Jordan, Matthew; Hart, Yuval; Dillon, Moira R.
Titel	Mind-Bending Geometry: Children's and Adults' Intuitions about Linearity on Spheres
Quelle	In: Developmental Psychology, 59 (2023) 5, S.886-892 (7 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Dillon, Moira R.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0012-1649
DOI	10.1037/dev0001509
Schlagwörter	Geometry; Geometric Concepts; Young Children; Adults; Intuition; Pictorial Stimuli; Age Differences; New York (New York) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Geometrie; Elementare Geometrie; Frühe Kindheit; Fantasieanregung; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied
Abstract	Humans appear to intuitively grasp definitions foundational to formal geometry, like definitions that describe points as infinitely small and lines as infinitely long. Nevertheless, previous studies exploring human's intuitive natural geometry have consistently focused on geometric principles in planar Euclidean contexts and thus may not comprehensively characterize humans' capacity for geometric reasoning. The present study explores whether children and adults can reason about linearity in spherical contexts. We showed 48 children (age range: 6-8 years) and 48 adults from the U.S. Northeast two different paths between the same two points on pictures of spheres and asked them to judge which path was the most efficient for an actor to get from a starting point to a goal object. In one kind of trial, both paths looked curved in the pictures, and in another kind of trial, the correct curved-looking path was paired with an incorrect straight-looking path. Adults were successful on both kinds of trials, and although children often chose the incorrect straight-looking path, they were surprisingly successful at identifying the efficient path when comparing two that were curved. Children thus may build on a natural geometry that gives us humans intuitions that are not limited to the formal axioms of Euclidean geometry or even to the Euclidean plane. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01