Developmental Changes in the Relative Weighting of Geometric and Experience-Dependent Location Cues

According to the category adjustment model of location estimation, children’s responses are biased toward spatial prototypes, and these biases increase under conditions of uncertainty. Consistent with the model, 6and 11-year-olds’ biases toward prototypes increased across delays, especially for locations far from prototypes. Response biases also varied systematically with target frequency; however, responses were not always biased toward prototypes. In Experiment 1, 6-year-olds’ responses to an infrequent target near the category boundary were biased toward a frequent target in an adjacent category. In Experiment 2, biases toward a frequent target were evident near prototypes. Both categorical information and children’s experience with locations influence location estimates. Moreover, children’s selective weighting of competing location cues changes between 6 and 11 years.