In this chapter, we have a close look at how children using a geocentric frame organize and describe a spatial layout. The first part will deal with what happens when the participants move around the display and describe it from different directions, or when the display is rotated. In part 2, we move further into a micro-analysis of how the children seem to organize a layout of three objects such as our Perspectives task.

Part 1: description of Perspectives when moving around a display

The three spatial frames of reference, intrinsic, egocentric and geocentric, have interesting properties when a display is rotated (Levinson, 2003, pp. 52–53). This is illustrated in Figure 1.2 (from Levinson, 2003, p. 52) in chapter 1. An important consequence of using a particular spatial FoR can be noted when a person describes a spatial layout from different positions either by moving around the display, or when the display itself is rotated. Levinson (2003) explains the logical properties of the three FoR by analyzing theoretically the effects of rotation of the viewer, the ground object and the whole array. With the geocentric frame, the same description can be given irrespective of the location of the viewer (“The ball is north of the chair” remains true irrespective of the position of the speaker), while this is not so with an egocentric frame.

However, this may be a slight simplification, which does not necessarily apply to more complex displays.