Are All Perspective Taking Tasks Created Equal? The Relationship Between Performance on Perspective Taking Tasks in Children

Spatial abilities assist in manipulating, constructing, and navigating the physical world (Newcombe & Shipley, 1992; Montello, 2001). In this study, a variety of tasks were utilized to measure various constructs of spatial abilities. One of the constructs measured was perspective taking which consists of the ability to understand and recognize situations at different points of view. This allows individuals to relate to others, understand spatial relations, and view objects in different spaces (Newcombe & Huttenlocker, 1992). Two tasks were employed to measure perspective taking: Piaget’s Three Mountains task and a task modeled after a study by Newcombe and Huttenlocher (1992). The aim of the current analysis was to examine how these two commonly used perspective taking tasks are related using a sample of typically developing children (Mage = 6; Range = 4-9). We hypothesized that these tasks would be highly correlated, even when controlling for age, as they are both meant to measure the same construct of perspective taking. Results indicated that performance on the two tasks was moderately and significantly correlated (r = .46), however when conducting a partial correlation analysis controlling for age, the correlation was no longer statistically significant (r = .06). This implies that although these two tasks are common perspective taking tasks used in research, they may not be uniformly measuring the same type of perspective taking. These findings lay the foundation for future research to examine if there may be differences between the two tasks such as difficulty level or different facets of perspective taking.