Young children's use of models and photographs as spatial representations

The ability of 2.5- and 3-year-old children to use a scale model and photographs as representations of a space is examined here, as a replication and extension of DeLoache (1987, 1989a, 1989b, 1990, 1991). Like DeLoache, the results of the present study indicate that 2.5-year-olds have great difficulty when asked to use information from a scale model of one place; they do not have this trouble with photographs of the region. However, they have similar difficulties with using photographs when the space depicted by the photograph is characterized as belonging to another agent. This combination of results suggest that both the three-dimensionality and “ownership” may interfere with appreciating the “dual orientation” of some representations as both real things in themselves and representations of something else, as suggested by DeLoache.