Journal of Environmental Psychology (2001) 21, 219^231 0272 - 4944/01/030219 + 13$30.

00/0
# 2001 Academic Press
doi:10.1006/jevp.2001.0207, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

ADVENTURE AS A STIMULUS FOR COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

EDWARD H. CORNELL, DIANNE C. HADLEY, TREENA M. STERLING, MELANIE A. CHAN, AND PATRICIA BOECHLER
University of Alberta

Abstract

As illustrated in two studies of the development of children’s independent way ¢nding, the happenstance of
adventure provides natural opportunities to shape analytical and strategic thinking. Although they had not
been instructed, when walking to the limits of their home range, 12-year-olds more than 8 -year-olds selectively
attended to environmental features with good landmark qualities. There was evidence of learning: older chil-
dren who had recently experienced the requirements of leading the way to and from a distant site increasingly
noted landmarks in the skyline and landmarks near intersections. Universal adventures of childhood may be
especially important for the development of sensitivity to contextual feedback and £exibility in achieving
goals. # 2001 Academic Press

Introduction way to achieve a goal. They also di¡erentiate strate-

It often happens that there is a discrepancy be-
tween what parents think their children are doing
and what in fact their children are doing. Parents’
naivete¤ about their children’s activities may be evi-
dent in several important domains, such as indepen-
dent travel from home, viewing of violent television
programming, and sexual behavior. One of the more
serious implications of parental naivete¤ is that chil-
dren are participating in potentially harmful activ-
ities without guidance. Parents may caution or
forbid and thereafter assume that their child is
avoiding an unacceptable activity. The younger child
who nevertheless tries forbidden activities may be
learning ways from peers or by the consequences ex-
perienced as a result of his or her own independent
attempts. The observations that we report here sug-
gest that children’s self-directed adventures are im-
portant opportunities for what Siegler (1996) has
characterized as the natural selection of cognitive
strategies.
Strategy development
In an earlier analysis, Siegler and Jenkins (1989) de-
¢ned cognitive strategies as non-obligatory and
goal-directed sequences of activities. They di¡eren-
tiated strategies from invariant procedural solu-
tions, which children may represent as the only
gies from plans, which are considered to be volun-
tary and deliberate. Thus, Siegler and Jenkins
‘de¢ne strategies as di¡ering from procedures in
that strategies necessarily involve choice, and as dif-
fering from plans in that the choice process is not
necessarily conscious’ (p. 12). As we shall illustrate,
these distinctions seem especially appropriate to
characterize how children begin ¢nding their way
in new territory.
The development of spatial cognition in large-
scale environments is classically described as an
age-stage sequence (Piaget & Inhelder, 1967; Piaget,
et al., 1960; Hart & Moore, 1973; Siegel & White,
1975). Prior to puberty, children’s spatial problem
solving is thought to be constrained by limited abil-
ities to reason and the predominance of landmark
and route-based forms of representation. Siegler’s
(1996) theory of strategy development suggests a dif-
ferent description. The theory begins with the as-
sumption that children have a variety of cognitive
strategies available and further assumes that there
is creation, deconstruction, and selection among
strategies when new problems are confronted. Chil-
dren’s initial attempts at solving a problem result in
feedback, outcomes indicating which strategy
proved most e¡ective in particular situations. Chil-
dren may experiment with partial or ine⁄cient stra-
tegies, sometimes regressing to clumsy methods.
However, in general, children are assumed to
220 Edward H. Cornell et al.
choose and retain those strategies that are e⁄-
ciently executed and produce the best results in re-
sponse to environmental pressures. By
incorporating such concepts as variability, change,
competition, and selection among strategies,
Siegler’s theory of cognitive development bears theo-
retical similarities to evolutionary theory.
In addition, Siegler (1996) argues that the diver-
sity of problem solving methods used by children
and adults is not compatible with the notion of dis-
crete stages of cognitive development. The gradual
improvements in speed and ease of execution of
strategies, the episodic creation of new successful
strategies, and the occasional brute force repetition
of old strategies suggests overlap and continuity of
cognitive competencies. The description seems to
¢t with recent arguments and empirical evidence
about the development of representation of large-
scale environments. For example, in contrast to a
stage-like progression through distinct modes of
landmark, route, and survey representation, the
spatiotemporal associations that characterize route
representations have been found to be part of ¢rst
knowledge along with recognition memory for land-
marks (Cornell et al., 1999). Similarly, Montello
(1998) summarizes a body of research that indicates
that both survey and topological representations
are involved when way ¢nders acquire route knowl-
edge.
Natural environments are rich with information,
so it seems likely that way ¢nding involves variabil-
ity and selection of attentive strategies. Neverthe-
less, the main empirical support for Siegler’s (1996)
theory comes from studies of children’s approaches
to problems with conventional and formal proper-
ties. Children have been found to select among and
adjust strategies when using an analog clock to tell
time, when mapping letter-sound correspondences
to spell words, or when processing arithmetic sym-
bols. We present preliminary observations here to il-
lustrate that the theory may be especially suited to
understanding cognitive development as a result of
childhood adventures. Children’s strategic attention
to certain outdoor landmarks is observed in a way
¢nding problem with obvious adaptive signi¢cance.
There should be natural contingencies for selection
of landmarks because children need to arrive at
destinations within a reasonable time, minimize
the e¡orts of travel, and avoid the dangers of being
lost.
There may be four ways that children change
their attentive strategies in response to the require-
ments of way ¢nding: (1) introduction of new, more
advanced strategies; (2) increasing use of the more
advanced strategies from among those that are al-
ready known; (3) increasingly e¡ective execution of
strategies; and (4) more adaptive choices among
strategies (Rittle-Johnson & Siegler, 1999). Because
children have used landmarks and relations be-
tween landmarks as frameworks for spatially direc-
ted behavior since infancy (Huttenlocher &
Newcombe, 1984), in the two studies that follow we
primarily look for evidence for the second mechan-
ism of change, increasing use of the more advanced
strategies. We note, however, that way ¢nding in
new territory requires prospective selection of land-
marks for the purpose of returning home. Young
children’s thinking would certainly be adaptive if
they considered their parent’s instructions and their
own competence before attempting new advanced
strategies. Hence, in the ¢rst study we also look for
evidence for the fourth mechanism of change, invol-
ving choice of prudent strategies.
Expansion of home range
Way ¢nding problems occur with the expansion of
home range during early and middle childhood.
Home range is the territory that includes the child’s
self-initiated travel. In most societies, home range
for infants and toddlers is clustered around the fa-
mily residence. Way ¢nding close to home is usually
accomplished by approaching visible destinations.
For example, in suburbs of Western cities, the ¢rst
extensions into the world are usually neighborhood
spaces such as sidewalks, alleys, and lawns of near-
by peers. However, cross-cultural studies have also
suggested that home range expands signi¢cantly
with the onset of peer interactions that are unsu-
pervised by adults (Berry, 1966; Coates & Bussard,
1974; Dawson, 1967; Harper & Sanders, 1975; Hart,
1979; Landy, 1965; Matthews, 1987; Munroe &
Munroe, 1971; Van Vliet, 1983). The relatively small
area of neighborhood play becomes the base of a dif-
fuse set of routes to sites for a variety of outdoor
activities. Parents or peers may be the initial guides
for much of this network, but children between the
ages of 5 and 12 are clearly extending the spatial
extent of their activities voluntarily and indepen-
dently (Moore & Young, 1978).
Our hypothesis is that these extensions provide
the motivation and proving grounds for way ¢nding
strategies. Two observational studies are described.
In the ¢rst, we use a technique described by Kirasic
and Mathes (1990) to assess whether there were age-
related di¡erences in patterns of scanning the
environment during outdoor walks. Certain pat-
terns of scanning may indicate a lack of selective
 Adventure and Cognitive Development 221

attention to landmarks. For example, Kirasic and
Mathes found that elderly adults who did not look
around while standing in a mall were ine⁄cient at
organizing a route in that environment.
We also recorded the distance and duration of the
children’s walks. These measures had been pre-
viously used to address a request by city police ser-
vices to tabulate the extent of travel by children of
di¡erent ages (Cornell & Heth, 1996). In situations
where children are reported lost or missing, the po-
lice use the crow’s-£ight distance from the point last
seen to a child’s intended destination as a radius for
a circle to contain initial search operations (see
Figure 1). Note that crow’s £ight distance is a linear
estimate of home range; play sites are typically not
the same distance in other directions (Matthews,
1987). Moreover, because of the layout of paths, dis-
tractions, and barriers in the environment, chil-
dren’s travel to their destinations is longer than
that estimated by a straight line.
Study 1
Method
Participants. Thirty-six families participated, al-
lowing observations of 18 6 -year-olds and 18 12-
year-olds. Each age group had an equal distribution
of boys and girls, mean ages 6 : l (range 5:9^6:6)
and 12:2 (range 11 : l0^12:5). The families resided in
middle- to upper-class suburban neighborhoods of

FIGURE 1. A child’s home range is represented on a cadastral map. The solid line between the child’s home (H: back door) and intended
destination (ID: soccer ¢eld) is the crow’s £ight measure of the farthest distance travelled. The dashed line illustrates the actual path
walked by the child to reach the intended destination. The remaining solid line completes a wedge used to estimate the dispersion of
the child’s travel.
222 Edward H. Cornell et al.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (population 600,000)
and the adjacent suburban community of St. Albert
(population 46,000). The neighborhoods were situ-
ated beyond the urban core and primarily zoned
for single-family houses. The neighborhoods were
less than 20 years old and featured curvilinear
streets with branching cul-de-sacs. Bicycle and pe-
destrian trails were accessible throughout the
neighborhoods, and most provided access to natural
parklands and school playgrounds.
Procedure. Families were called after sending a let-
ter describing the study of home range and its im-
plications for police search operations. During a
telephone interview establishing participation, a re-
search assistant asked parents a question police ty-
pically ask when investigating a missing child
incident: ‘What is the location of the farthest place
your child has ever travelled independently from
your home?’ The assistant also asked parents about
any methods for way ¢nding they may have told
their children, as well as instructions they may have
provided about what to do when lost. Parents were
invited to follow along on the walk, and three
elected to do so.
The following day the same assistant arrived at
the household and asked the child to take her to
the farthest place from their home that they had
‘been to alone and knew they could get to’. The assis-
tant informed the child that she would be a few
steps behind the child in order to ensure that the
child was the leader. The assistant carried a tape re-
corder with a microphone fastened near her collar.
This allowed a description of the route in enough
detail to be translated to a 1:5000 cadastral map.
The assistant also wore a race watch that signaled
once per minute. At the signal, the assistant noted
whether the child’s head was displaced from forward
orientation. A horizontal scan was recorded if the
head was estimated to be more than 158 to the left
or right of a straight ahead posture and a vertical
scan was recorded if the head was estimated to be
more than 158 upward or downward.
Children were encouraged to rest whenever they
wished during the walk. If a child became confused
or concerned about ¢nding their way, the assistant
assured the child that she knew the way back and
they could go back anytime they wanted. The assis-
tant did not provide navigation hints, and several
children elected to double-back after considering
their location. After reaching the child’s chosen des-
tination, the assistant praised the child and sug-
gested that it might be fun to try a di¡erent route
home: ‘Can you lead us back a di¡erent way? Would
you like to try to go home using new paths?’.
Results
Parental instructions
Parents of younger children told us that they gave
strict instructions to their children to only travel
to close or visible locations by previously shown
routes. However, when 6 -year-old children chatted
while leading their excursions, they indicated that
interesting sightsöa cat on a fence, an opening un-
der a chain link fenceöor play with friends had led
them to discover other places that were close to or
visible from permitted locations. Parents of 12-year-
old children were more aware of the possibility of
autonomy and often asked about actual travel with-
out chastising their children. Interestingly, most
parents typically provided instructions for safe
independent travel, but few discussed way ¢nding
strategies that could be used when lost. Of the 18
families in each age group, 16 of the parents of 6 -
year-olds and 16 of the parents of 12-year-olds gave
safety-related instructions such as:
‘Always keep some coins so that you can call.
What’s our number?’
‘Always cross streets at crosswalks. Stay away
from tra⁄c’.
‘You know how to tell which houses are Block
Parents?’
‘Don’t ask strangers for directions. Go to the
clerk in the grocery store.’
‘Stay in one place.’
Two of the parents of 6 -year-olds and 5 of the par-
ents of 12-year-olds gave way ¢nding instructions
such as:
‘Watch where you are going’.
‘Retrace your steps’.
‘Read street signs to see whether the numbers
are going up or down’.
‘Remember, the sun rises in the east and sets
in the west’.
Characteristics of travel
A 262 (Age group6Gender) ANOVA of the crow’s
£ight distance traveled indicated only a reliable ef-
fect of age group, F(l,35) = 31
20, p50
001. Twelve-
year-old children traveled a mean of 2501 m
(S.D. = 1240) as the crow £ies and 6 -year-old children
traveled a mean of 769 m (S.D. = 326).
 Adventure and Cognitive Development
FIGURE 2. The discrepancy between parents’ reports of their chil-
dren’s travel and 6 -year-old children’s actual travel from urban
and suburban homes. Each bar represents the mean distance to
destinations of 18 participants.
Because of the di¡erence in scale of travel by the
two age groups, a logarithmic transformation was
applied to the crow’s £ight distance measures to as-
sess whether there was a discrepancy between the
actual travel by the child and the distance of the
location reported by parents to be their child’s
farthest destination. A 262 (Age group6Gender)
multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) of the
two distance measures indicated the interaction il-
lustrated in Figure 2, F(1,34) = 6
25, p50
02. The lo-
cations of distant destinations known by parents of
12-year-olds averaged only 30 m more crow’s £ight
distance from home than the destinations they
walked to, but there was on average a 262 m under-
estimate of 6 -year-old’s actual travel.
When asked to lead us to a place they knew they
could get to, 6 -year-olds seemed to lead the assis-
tant along direct routes. Route maps indicated few
turns and destinations that could be seen early in
the walk. To estimate the challenges of di¡erent
route choices, we created an index of extra travel,
measured as the actual distance travelled by the
child divided by the distance of the shortest possi-
ble route to the destination. Values over 1
0 indicate
unnecessary travel. We found that, leading the walk
from home to destination, the mean value for the 12-
year-olds was 1
24, indicating that they travelled
more than one ¢fth as far as they needed to,
whereas the mean extra distance index for the 6 -
year-olds on the outgoing walk was 1
06 (S.D. = 0
29
and 0
19, for the older and younger groups, respec-
tively). A 262 (Age group6Gender) analysis of var-
iance (ANOVA) of the extra distance index
indicated the age e¡ect was reliable, F(1,35) = 7
92,
p50
01.
223
All children successfully reached their chosen
destination. When asked at their destinations if they
could ¢nd a di¡erent way home, 16 12-year-olds
elected to try, but only 11 6 -year-olds did so,
w2 = 3
7, df = 1, p = 0
05. Two 6 -year-olds considered a
return on the parallel sidewalk on the opposite side
of the street to be a new route. The di¡erence be-
tween the age groups in extra distance travelled
during the walk from destination to home was not
reliable, F(1,35) = 0
239. The mean extra distance in-
dex of 12-year-old children was 1
23, whereas that of
6 -year-old children increased to 1
17 (S.D. = 0
25 and
0
44 for the older and younger groups, respectively).
Scanning behavior
On average, the 12-year-olds were recorded to be
scanning on M = 19 per cent (S.D. = 15) of their
M = 108 min (S.D. = 56) walks, which was less than
the M = 32 per cent (S.D.=18) of minute-sampled ob-
servations of the M = 36 min (S.D.=16) duration walks
of the 6 -year-olds, as indicated by a 262 (Age
group6Gender) ANOVA, F(1,35) = 4
94, p50
05.
However, 12-year-olds were looking from side-to-side
M = 88 per cent (S.D.=24) of the time they were re-
corded to be scanning, whereas 6 -year-olds showed
M = 75 per cent (S.D. = 19) side-to-side scanning
F(1,32) = 2
93, p50
10, a marginal di¡erence re£ect-
ing younger children’s tendencies to look downward
at features of the path. The result is corroborated in
the study that follows. One 6 -year-old boy in the
present study volunteered that directing attention
downward was an important technique for him: ‘I
just know how to get there by looking at the ground.
All I need to look at is the ground’. Note that a
downward pattern of scanning would not help to
register landmarks that could be used if the boy
stepped o¡ path during his return.
Discussion
These results describe natural opportunities for
children to try way ¢nding strategies. Both the
duration of excursions and extraneous travel on the
way to their destination increased from early to
middle childhood. Parental emphasis on safety in-
structions left open the possibility that children
were learning to selectively attend to landmarks
during independent excursions or with peers.
Although some were cautious about attempting
new routes, 6 -year-old children were travelling be-
yond the limits their parents expected for them.
Their path choices for these excursions typically in-
volved linear extensions along established routes.
224 Edward H. Cornell et al.
These choices allowed selective attention to highly
familiar landmarks and in many cases, repetitions
of familiar landmark-action sequences. The strate-
gies of 6 -year-olds were consistent with route-based
representation of their neighborhoods (Siegel &
White, 1975).
In contrast, 12-year-old children were more likely
to visit distant destinations and take new routes.
Their pattern of scanning indicated a greater pro-
portion of attention to landmarks along the horizon
than on the paths themselves. The pattern seems to
be more discriminative; peripheral landmarks such
as houses are typically more distinguishable to
adults than cracks on the sidewalk. In addition,
previously seen landmarks on the skyline may be
visible when the child is scanning horizontally. The
12-year-olds may be more likely to attempt complex
routes than the 6 -year-olds because they di¡eren-
tially attend to landmarks that are anchors for sur-
vey representations (Golledge, 1995).
In our second study, we sought evidence to clarify
the direction of the relations between the demands
of way ¢nding and the development of selective at-
tention. On two separate days, we asked new chil-
dren to take us to di¡erent distant places they had
walked to only once or twice. There is an expanse
and variety of objects and events that can attract
attention in new territory, but not all of these are
pertinent to the requirements of returning home.
We reasoned that, if adventure stimulates cognitive
development, challenges and experiences while navi-
gating in relatively unfamiliar territory on the ¢rst
day should lead to prospective selection of land-
marks on the second day.
To further ensure that adventures would occur,
we elected to observe children whose chosen routes
would likely be more complex than those of 6 -year-
olds. A range of ages bracketing eight years was ob-
served because of recent evidence that 8 -year-olds
are beginning to use spatial relations as navigation
cues in natural settings (Heth et al., 1997). Hence,
we assumed that verbal protocols of children ap-
proaching and beyond 8 or 12 years of age would
likely reveal the microgenesis of strategies for selec-
tion of landmarks (Siegler & Crowley, 1991).
Study 2
Method
Subjects. Families and neighborhoods were similar
to those of the ¢rst study. We observed eight boys
and eight girls of mean age 8
1 (range 6
8^8
11) and
eight boys and eight girls of mean age 11
8 (range
10
1^12
8).
Procedure. Families were recruited for participa-
tion using the procedures used for Study 1. To en-
sure that parents would not discuss strategies with
their children, parents were not questioned about
way ¢nding instructions and were simply told to tell
their children that people from the university were
coming to visit their special places and to see the
paths they knew in their neighborhood. Parents
were instructed to ask their children about 3 to 5
places far from their home that they had walked to
by themselves only once or twice. Parents were sub-
sequently contacted so that the research assistant
could identify these places on a survey map and
measure the crow’s £ight distance to each. Two
places were selected that were similar distances
from the home.
When the research assistant visited the home, she
engaged the child in a warm-up task that involved
pointing and labeling objects in pictures of complex
scenes. Once rapport had been established, the as-
sistant suggested that the child show her the way
to one of his or her special places. Children were
told that it would be a safe walk, because the assis-
tant knew the neighborhood and had a cellular
phone so that they could call home at any time. Par-
ents were also invited to accompany the walk, and
three elected to do so.
For half of the children, the ¢rst walk was to the
closer of the two selected destinations. Prior to the
¢rst walk, half the children were told they would
have to return home using di¡erent paths than they
had used to reach their special place. The other half
were told before leaving home that they would have
to return by taking the exact same paths that they
used to reach their special place. The order of the
close and far routes was counterbalanced with new
route and route reversal procedures, and boys and
girls of di¡erent age groups were assigned to orders
using a blocked random design.
For half of the children, prior to both walks the
assistant asked the child to name things that he or
she saw ‘that would be helpful for ¢nding the way to
and from far away places’. These children were
prompted to name what they were looking at if they
had not named landmarks for over 5 min and if they
were observed to be scanning and did not mention
anything. To check whether the requirement to
name landmarks a¡ected way ¢nding performance,
the other half of the children did not receive these
instructions or prompts, but the assistant neverthe-
less recorded what they said. Assignment to the
 Adventure and Cognitive Development
condition to name landmarks was counterbalanced
with age and gender of participants.
Results
Distance travelled. A 26262 (Age Group6Gen-
der6Name Landmarks Condition) ANOVA of crow’s
£ight distance traveled indicated no reliable e¡ects,
all Fs 51
6. When the two selected walks were com-
bined, the mean crow’s £ight distance from home to
destinations was 1116 and 1045 m, (S.D. = 324 and 732)
for the 12- and 8 -year-olds, respectively. Hence, dif-
ferences in way ¢nding performance cannot be read-
ily attributed to di¡erences in the distance that the
children had to walk.
Route e⁄ciency. When asked prior to the walk, 8 -
year-olds readily accepted the challenge to lead the
way to distant destinations that they had infre-
quently visited, but subsequently found it di⁄cult
to ¢nd their way to these sites. Indeed, two mea-
sures of route e⁄ciency indicated reliable di¡er-
ences between the 8 -year-olds and 12-year-olds. The
paths taken by the younger children were more dis-
perse and they tended to walk farther than the least
distance route to the destination.
We estimated the dispersion of the children’s
paths as an angle. After the paths taken by the
child were drawn on a survey map, the paths were
bracketed within a wedge of a circle centered on the
child’s home (see Figure 1). The rationale for this
measure is that e⁄cient travel to a destination
should not involve excessive lateral displacements
from the crow’s £ight line between the origin of tra-
vel and the destination. Typically, displacements are
inevitable in cities because of the layout of blocks.
Regardless, the mean size of the smallest wedge to
contain the dispersion of the 12-year-olds was 808
(S.D. = 26) and the mean dispersion of 6 -year-olds’
paths was 1048 (S.D. = 26). A 26262 (Age Group6
Gender6Name Landmarks Condition) ANOVA of
the angle of dispersion indicated only a main e¡ect
of age group, F(1,31) = 6
96, p50
02.
The children’s route e⁄ciency was also indexed by
extra travel, measured as the actual distance tra-
velled by the child divided by the distance of the
shortest possible route. A 26262 (Age Group6
Gender6Name Landmarks Condition) ANOVA of
the extra distance index indicated only a main ef-
fect of age group, F(1,31) = 8
79, p50
01. Over all
outgoing and incoming walks, the mean extra dis-
tance index for the 12-year-olds was 1
14 (S.D. = 0
11),
whereas the mean index for the 8 -year-olds was 1
49
225
FIGURE 3. The crossover illustrates that younger children tended
to wander when asked to take a new route home from a distant
destination but successfully attempted shortcuts when asked to
return by familiar routes. The extra distance index is the dis-
tance in meters of the route used by the child divided by the dis-
tance in meters of the shortest possible route. Each point
represents the index for 16 children.
(S.D. = 0
41), indicating that they travelled almost half
again as far as they needed to.
To isolate the source of the age di¡erence in way
¢nding performance, the extra distance index was
calculated separately for travel from home to desti-
nation and from destination to home for both the
route reversal and new route procedures.
A 26262 ANOVA was conducted with age group
as a between-subjects variable and two within-sub-
jects variables, direction of travel (from or toward
home) and requirements for returning (old or new
paths). The main e¡ect of age group was repeated,
F(l,30) = 10
07, p50
01, and Figure 3 illustrates a 3 -
way interaction, F(1,30) = 4
03, p = 0
5: The younger
children especially had di⁄culty returning home
when asked to use a new route. Interestingly, even
when asked to return by the same paths they had
used to reach their destination, 7 of the 16 younger
children initiated shortcuts. Three of the shortcuts
generally followed a line of sight between segments
of the previously walked path; four shortcuts re-
quired an inferred connection.
Scanning. Two measures of selective attention were
recorded during these walks. Because our earlier
observations indicated that time-sampling was not
necessary, all episodes of side-to-side or up-down
head movements of more than 158 were recorded.
A 26262 (Age Group6Gender6Name Landmarks
Condition) ANOVA of the number of scans indicated
no reliable e¡ects, all Fs51
2, indicating that age
groups did not di¡er in frequency of scanning
when travelling to relatively unfamiliar destina-
tions. The mean number of scanning episodes
226 Edward H. Cornell et al.
during a walk to and from a chosen destination was
21 (S.D. = 19).
The previously indicated reliable di¡erence be-
tween younger and older children in plane of scan-
ning was corroborated, however. A 26262 (Age
Group6Gender6Name Landmarks Condition)
ANOVA of the percentage of horizontal scans
indicated a reliable e¡ect of age, F(1,31) = 4
05,
p = 0
05. Across all walks of the second study,
M = 80 per cent (S.D.=10) of the scanning episodes
by 12-year-olds were from side-to-side, in contrast
to M = 70 per cent (S.D.=15) side-to-side episodes by
8 -year-olds.
Landmarks named. The second measure of selec-
tive attention involved an analysis of the qualities
of objects that children named that they judged to
be useful to ¢nd their way. Four nonexclusive cate-
gories were de¢ned and the researcher who accom-
panied a child along a walk was trained to classify
reliably objects as they were named. Permanent
landmarks were rooted, inanimate, did not have
wheels, and were usually massive. Distant land-
marks were objects in the skyline that were judged
to be visible from at least two blocks o¡ route. Dis-
tant landmarks can provide bearings when immedi-
ate cues are unfamiliar or ambiguous. Landmarks
were considered unique if they were easily discrimi-
nated in the environmental context and there was
only one along the walk; a house with a red door
was judged to be unique whereas a telephone pole
was not. Landmarks were judged to be near intersec-
tions if they were estimated to be visible from any of
the roads or paths leading to the intersection. These
would be important for associations with appropri-
ate turns, whereas nonintersection landmarks were
named in the middle of city blocks, where changes
in bearing could not occur.
One 8 -year-old girl named objects continuously
during one of her walks, listing over 200 objects as
she encountered them. When the datum from this
young outlier was eliminated, a 26262 (Age Group
6 Gender 6 Name Landmarks Condition) ANOVA
of the total landmarks named indicated a marginal
e¡ect of age group F(1,30) = 3
55, p50
07. The 8 -year-
olds tended to name more landmarks than the 12-
year-olds, means of 24 and 14 (S.D.s = 17 and 12) re-
spectively. The name landmarks condition produced
a reliable e¡ect, F(1,30) = 8
83, p50
01. Children
who had been instructed to name objects that could
be useful for way ¢nding named a mean of 27 land-
marks (S.D. = 14), whereas children who had not been
instructed mentioned a mean of 12 (S.D. = 13) land-
marks. Two children (one in each age group) who
had not been told to do so did not mention any land-
marks along the walk.
Figure 4 illustrates the proportion of the total
landmarks named that were classi¢ed into the four
categories pertinent to way ¢nding. An ANOVA for
the e¡ects of age was conducted for the proportions
obtained within each of the four categories. The
superiority of the 12-year-olds in the proportion of
permanent and distant landmarks named was reli-
able, Fs (1,29) = 16
36 and 4
77, respectively, p50
05.
Each dashed line in Figure 4 represents an index
of the baseline proportion of the type of landmark
named. The index was derived by videotaping a ran-
dom sample of eight walks that had been taken by
boys and girls of each age group. Fifty random
frame numbers of the videotapes were generated
and all unitary objects were counted and categor-
ized when a frame had been isolated. Hence, the
baseline provides an estimate of the available quali-
ties of landmarks in the suburban environments
that were the context of the children’s excursions.
Contrasts of the baseline proportions of landmark
qualities with the proportions named by children
were conducted for each age group separately using
t-tests of independent samples, each with two-tailed
a = 0
05.
Both age groups named a reliably larger propor-
tion of unique landmarks in contrasts with the ran-
domly derived baseline index, t(1, 58) = 11
78 and
t(1, 59) = 8
58, for the 12- and 6 -year-olds, respec-
tively. The 12-year-olds named a reliably larger pro-
portion of landmarks at intersections in contrast
with the baseline t(1, 63) = 2
07, whereas the 8 -year-
olds did not, t(1, 63) = 1
53. The 12-year-olds named a
reliably larger proportion of distant landmarks in
contrast with the baseline t(1, 63) = 3
84, whereas
the 8 -year-olds did not, t(1, 63) = 1
07. The propor-
tion of permanent landmarks named by the 12-
year-olds was not reliably di¡erent than the
large proportion of permanent objects indicated
to be in the environment, t(1, 63) = 0
38. In contrast,
8 -year-olds named a reliably smaller proportion
of permanent landmarks than indicated by the
baseline, t(1, 63) =74
78; their verbal protocols
indicated they sometimes noted animals (a bumble-
bee in a car window) and vehicles (an ice cream
truck).
The salience of objects and events may occasion-
ally belie their usefulness as cues for directing tra-
vel on the return trip. For example, one young girl
said, ‘I can’t remember if this is the right alley
because that dog isn’t here barking at us this
time’. Another young girl entering an alley said
‘Look, a blue recycle box. That’s important’. As she
 Adventure and Cognitive Development 227

FIGURE 4. Columns indicate the proportion of the total landmarks named by 16 children that were characterized by permanence, un-
iqueness, proximity to intersections, or visibility in the distance. The dashed lines represent estimates of the baseline frequency of the
four characteristics.

progressed down the alley, she said ‘Oh, no! That’s
badöThere’s recycle boxes everywhere!’
E¡ects of experience. An important implication of
our hypothesis about the natural selection of strate-
gies is that experiences on the ¢rst walk should af-
fect measures of attention on the second walk. The
e¡ects of experience were assessed with 262
ANOVAs, with age group as a between-subjects vari-
able and ¢rst and second walk as levels in a within-
subjects variable. Note that subjects would not en-
ter into analyses if proportional data could not be
calculated for either walk.
There were no obvious changes in proportion of
horizontal scanning, although the main e¡ect of
age group was sustained, F(l, 30) = 4
16, p = 0
05. In
addition, there were two interactions indicating re-
liable age-related shifts in the qualities of land-
marks selected on the ¢rst and second walks. The
¢rst interaction involved the proportion of land-
marks named near intersections, F(1,19) = 22
30,
p50
01. During the second walk, 12-year-olds se-
lected a greater proportion of landmarks near
228 Edward H. Cornell et al.
intersections (M = 83%, S.D. = 13) than did 8 -year-
olds (M = 47%, S.D=26), whereas there was no reliable
di¡erence between the age groups on the ¢rst walk
(M = 54% and 62% S.D. = 22 and 24, respectively, for
the older and younger children). The second interac-
tion involved the proportion of distant landmarks
named, F(1,19) = 5
78, p50
05. During the second
walk, 12-year-olds selected a greater proportion of
distant landmarks (M = 49%, S.D. = 26) than did 8 -
year-olds (M = 21%, S.D. = 14), whereas there was no
reliable di¡erence between the age groups on the
¢rst walk (M = 44% and 43% S.D. = 27 and 21, respec-
tively, for the older and younger children). Hence,
the older children chose more appropriate land-
marks after their experiences leading the way to
and from a distant destination. As explained by
one 12-year-old girl, ‘I can remember that this is
the corner I turn at to go home because that is my
school and that was my classroom door that I went
in every day’.
Diverse learning. Although we found that older
children more than younger children selectively at-
tended to objects with good landmark qualities, re-
cordings taken during the walks indicated that
attentive strategies were only one of a variety of
cognitive developments that would allow for e⁄-
cient way ¢nding. The development of a local knowl-
edge base is indicated here:
SG, an 11-year-old girl: ‘I know my way because of
the bus route signs.’
Research Assistant: ‘How do you know that these
signs wont lead you onto a di¡erent bus route?’
SG: ‘Because this is the only bus route around here’.
The ability to translate routes into con¢gurational
knowledge could also help with way ¢nding deci-
sions:
NK, an 8 -year-old boy: ‘Hah! This street is kinda
like a ‘U’, isn’t it.
Look!öit goes back to the school we saw before.
That for sure is the school we saw’.
Finally, at least one child was beginning to use
calculations based on conventions of the urban grid
system:
LN, an 11-year-old girl: ‘‘Hmmm, 143rd street, and we
need to be on 146th street, so we can go along for a
few more blocks. . .’’
These observations remind us that, although selec-
tive attention to landmarks is fundamental, there
are multiple solutions to the problem of human na-
vigation. A repertoire of these solutions seems to
develop as outcomes of adventure.
General Discussion
The development of home range
Interestingly, the extent of travel we observed in our
¢rst study was substantially greater than what has
been estimated from structured interviews with
children. For example, Matthews (1987) recorded
that 6 -year-olds in the suburbs of Coventry,
England, named places they could travel to alone
that were 100 m from their home, and the children
reported that they had been to places with older
children that were 290 m from their home. Our ob-
servations indicate 3^4 times more actual travel. In
addition, Matthews and others (Coates &
Bussard, 1974; Hart, 1979; Payne & Jones, 1977) have
noted gender di¡erences in home range, with par-
ents reporting more constraints on their daughters
and some girls themselves reporting closer range of
experience than similar primary-school-age boys. We
did not discover gender di¡erences in any of the
measures observed during actual travel in both stu-
dies reported here. Moreover, the distances we re-
corded and lack of gender di¡erences are
consistent with the results of an earlier observa-
tional study with more age groups and larger sam-
ple sizes (Cornell & Heth, 1996).
There are several possible explanations for these
di¡erent results. Our observations were done in the
neighborhoods, following behind children. It may be
that our participants selected unusually distant des-
tinations because they were con¢dent of the accom-
paniment by an adult. Or, it may be that young
children respond di¡erently as leaders in an out-
door activity than they do when they are inter-
viewed by adults. Finally, there are signi¢cant
cultural and cohort di¡erences between the chil-
dren who have participated in studies of home
range. The general ¢nding is that both boys and
girls are extending their activities into their neigh-
borhood so that by middle childhood all children
travel well beyond the territory visible from their
home.
Our second study indicated that, by at least eight
years of age, children know the features of their
neighborhood that are distinctive. Their naming of
unique landmarks was impressive, but perhaps in
part the younger children were attracted by the sal-
ience of objects rather than to features that could
be linked to way ¢nding decisions. This interpreta-
tion is consistent with the ¢nding that 8 -year-old
children named proportionately less permanent ob-
jects than existed along their routes; records
showed that sometimes attention was commanded
 Adventure and Cognitive Development
by cats, sprinklers, vehicles, or even litter blowing
in the wind. As a result, the baseline estimates of
the frequency of categories of objects in the neigh-
borhood revealed that there was selective attention
to transient events; development consisted of in-
creased naming of permanent objects to the extent
that they exist in the surround. In contrast, the
number of landmarks named at intersections and
in the distance indicated attention beyond baseline
estimates of the proportion of landmarks with these
qualities. As found in experimental studies of route
learning, the increases in selective attention to
landmarks at intersections and in the distance de-
veloped between 8 - and 12-years of age (Golledge
et al., 1985; Heth et al., 1997).
Implications for cognitive development
Although we only anticipated two, the results point
to three kinds of change in attentive strategies.
First, the landmarks named by children indicated
the introduction of a new advanced strategy. Older
children reliably named distant landmarks as help-
ful whereas younger children only named them with
the frequency with which they were estimated to
occur. Selective attention to distant landmarks is
consistent with theories of the development of ad-
vanced spatial representation (Siegel & White,
1975). Distant landmarks are particularly important
anchors for survey knowledge; they are typically
visible from a variety of locations and hence provide
reference points within a large-scale spatial frame-
work (Golledge, 1995).
Second, increased use of more advanced strate-
gies from those that are already known is indicated
by the development of patterns of scanning. Younger
children showed a predominance of looking to the
left and right, but older children showed even larger
proportions of this kind of scanning. We have sug-
gested that horizontal scanning reveals more distin-
guishable features of the urban environment than
does downward looking. Moreover, horizontal scan-
ning may re£ect selective attention to features of
the skyline, distant landmarks that serve as refer-
ence points from a variety of perspectives.
Finally, we interpret two observations as exam-
ples of adaptive choice among attentive strategies.
The ¢rst is indicated by the 6 -year-old children
who chose direct routes that allowed them to keep
in contact with familiar landmarks. The second is
indicated by the 12-year-old children who no longer
named transient events as important landmarks.
Both observations indicate selective attention to re-
liable environmental cues.
229
In sum, the results provide examples of three
broad categories of strategy change identi¢ed to be
core components of cognitive development (Rittle-
Johnson & Siegler, 1999). More detailed analyses
such as measurement of children’s latency to select
landmarks may illustrate the fourth category of
change, increasingly e¡ective execution of strate-
gies. At this juncture, our observations suggest that
Siegler’s (1996) emphasis on the adaptive qualities of
strategy change is warranted. His description of
variability and selection among strategies is consis-
tent with the verbal reports and observations of at-
tention when children confront the requirements of
a natural problem domain.
Of the problem domains that stimulate children’s
cognitive development, what are the special quali-
ties of adventures beyond home range? Certainly,
freedom and fun. Like exploratory play, the only
aim of adventure may be new interactions, but the
events during adventures seem much more encom-
passing than the organized games and testing of
objects and roles that characterize much of home-
based play (Barker, 1979). In adventure, adults and
convention are not setting the goals and activities
are unsupervised. These circumstances are di¡erent
than arrangements for school curricula; studies of
children responding to task demands in natural
contexts may help us understand their strategic ad-
justments within arithmetic, spelling, and other for-
mal problem domains.
For example, even when routines are taught, some
children will invent e⁄cient ways to solve arith-
metic problems (Resnick, 1976). Resnick suggested
that the discovery of a new strategy was the result
of children’s attempts to reduce the steps in the
taught routine, the opportunity to choose compo-
nent operations, and children’s con¢dence that they
could execute the taught routine. We noted similar
conditions for shortcuts during route reversal way
¢nding. Even when instructed to stay on familiar
paths, some children attempted more e⁄cient
routes. The environment included several paths that
would reach the same goal. The children could see
portions of their old path sequence and were most
familiar with paths close to home.
Anchorage to the familiar and the discovery of
e⁄cient routes are important components of way
¢nding, but a complete adventure also includes ele-
ments of risk, happenstance and wonder. Hart (1979)
provides fascinating evidence that children often go
out of their way to take ‘shortcuts’ that are fre-
quently longer and more hazardous than the origi-
nal routes that they know. Because of the
unknown, planning prior to such adventures is
230 Edward H. Cornell et al.
often incomplete. It would not be an adventure if
the child could anticipate all of the events and re-
quirements of action. The challenge is to size up
new situations and react successfully. Because not
all of the outcomes of planning decisions can be cer-
tain, the adventurer may even choose to leave some
decisions open for consideration during action. In
this sense, adventure fosters adjustment to chan-
ging circumstances (Rogo¡ et al., 1987). There is se-
lection among strategies to achieve a discovered
subgoal.
Our observations of changes in attention to land-
marks illustrate how this might happen. Eight-year-
olds showed more diverse scanning and named
more landmarks than the 12-year-olds. The active
patterns of attention by younger children indicate
that they were noting a variety of landmarks. How-
ever, we did not ¢nd evidence that they particularly
appreciated the usefulness of distant landmarks,
features of the skyline that can serve as reference
at several sites along a familiar route and provide
bearings when on a new route. It would have been
prudent to do so. Most of the children travelled on
new paths when returning home during their ¢rst
walk, either because they were asked to try new
routes or because they inadvertently stepped o¡
their original route. Measures of dispersion and ex-
tra travel indicated that 8 -year-olds were more
likely than 12-year-olds to wander during these ex-
cursions (cf., Cornell et al., 1989).
The changes in naming of landmarks indicate how
12 -year-olds were becoming more e⁄cient. Their de-
liberations at choice points along their ¢rst walk
seem to have boosted selective attention to land-
marks at intersections during their second walk.
These landmarks are cues at places where action
must be directedöa heading maintained or a turn
initiatedöand hence are core elements of route re-
presentation (Siegel & White, 1975). In addition, un-
expected events during their ¢rst walk may have
reminded the 12-year-olds to maintain attention to
landmarks that could be seen from o¡ route during
their second walk. In sum, the repeated observations
suggest that older children were learning to use
both route and survey-based representations for pro-
spective strategies, or methods to prevent and re-
cover from navigation errors. More generally, the
results indicate how Siegler’s (1996) characterization
of variability and selection of strategies may account
for the overlap of stages of spatial representation.
The creation and testing of strategies is espe-
cially apparent when adventures become serious
(Hill, 1999). Hill interviewed a 13 -year-old boy and
a 9 -year-old girl who were rescued after they had
been lost together in the vicinity of their rural
neighborhood. When the children ¢rst realized that
they could not ¢nd their way home, they tried back-
tracking, retracing their steps. When they could not
tell where they had been, they abandoned the plan
of ¢nding their house, and began random travelling,
hoping to encounter any house. When the wandering
strategy failed, they climbed a hill in order to en-
hance their view. As darkness fell, they moved into
an open area to spend the night. In the morning, the
boy used the open area as a base for a direction
sampling strategy, venturing forth some distance
along a bearing, breaking down small trees in order
to keep the base in view as he progressed. When the
base could no longer be seen, he returned to his
friend, then repeated the process in a di¡erent di-
rection. Eventually, he heard a searcher calling.
The incident highlights how children faced with
the constraints and resources of a natural situation
are able to make £exible and deliberate use of envir-
onmental feedback to bootstrap a plan (Rogo¡ et al.,
1987).
In sum, as an example of the lessons of adventure,
observations of the expansion of home range by pre-
pubescent children have revealed problem solving
when solutions have not been taught. The problem
domainönavigation in large scale environmentsö
is vast and varied. It is culturally universal. There
seems to be strong motivations for both exploration
and solution. While feedback concerning e¡orts can
sometimes be immediate, part of the problem is
forecasting and interpreting outcomes of actions.
These conditions allow for the natural selection of
cognitive strategies.
Notes
The authors’ research was supported by a grant from the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to
E. Cornell.
We gratefully acknowledge the help of our colleagues Don
Heth and Je¡ Bisanz.
Correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed to
Edward H. Cornell, Department of Psychology, University of
Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E1. Email: ecornel-
l@ualberta.ca
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