Children's construction of horizontals, verticals, and diagonals: An operational explanation of the "oblique effect."

Used a computer-based task to investigate the problem that young children have in constructing diagonals. The computer made it feasible to change how lines of different orientations had to be formed. It was predicted that if diagonals are difficult to construct because of the operations required to conceptualize them, then changing how they had to be formed might make it possible for children to construct diagonals better than horizontals and verticals. 20 5-yr-olds, 20 8-yr-olds, and 20 undergraduates attempted to construct horizontal, vertical, 45° left diagonal, and 45° right diagonal lines in either horizontal/vertical-easy or diagonal-easy configurations of the apparatus. Results support the operational explanation of the oblique effect. The 5-yr-olds performed in accordance with the configuration of the drawing system. On the whole, they could not make diagonals in the horizontal/vertical-easy configuration, thus demonstrating the oblique effect. When diagonals were made easy to produce, 5-yr-olds could form them but had difficulty with horizontals and verticals, indicating a nonoblique effect in the diagonal-easy configuration. There was only an oblique effect with the 8-yr-olds. Undergraduates made virtually no errors on any of the lines. Findings confirm the claim that the difficulty that the 5-yr-olds had was in combining separate spatial components. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)