Cognitive processes underlying reorientation in children

Spatial reorientation involves using cues in the surrounding environment to represent locations and one's own position and heading within it. The challenge to understanding the processes underlying navigation is that aspects of behavior manifested at the same time are often interpreted as being dependent on the same underlying cognitive process. The present thesis aims to tease apart two independent processes that explain children's reorientation behavior---a modular reorientation mechanism according to 3D surface layouts, and a beaconing mechanism using landmarks and their features. Part 1 tests the extent to which disoriented children can use objects and featural cues; Part 2 tests the extent to which the immediate functional relevance of surfaces can explain their use for reorientation; finally, Part 3 tests the extent to which an object is included or excluded from the representation of the layout representation used for reorientation according to its physical properties and continuity to the larger environment. The results support the view that reorientation via the analysis of relative positions is specifically and exclusively attuned to the visual 3D environmental surface layout geometry, while objects and features, though encoded and used by a disoriented animal, serve only as beacons or direct markers to location.