ABSTRACT
In this chapter we discuss some data from studies dealing with early development of spatial skills. The procedure chosen for approaching the problem consists of presenting babies with an invisible source of sound and to observe several aspects of their behavior in this situation. We were particularly interested in spatially oriented activities displayed by the babies, head-or eye-turning, for example. The reason is that when this type of behavior shows a systematic relation to some of the spatial properties of the sound, it becomes possible to speculate about the baby's spatial skills. For instance, to turn the head systematically in the direction of the sound source (or in the opposite direction) it is necessary to translate the stimulus' spatial properties into a motor program that is also spatially organized. Therefore, the baby is able to localize sounds in the distal space. This conclusion is not guaranteed if the baby's behavior is not spatially oriented. Let us suppose an experiment showing that babies cry considerably more when a sound is presented at their left side than when it is presented at their right side. Such a result would certainly indicate that the infants distinguish between sound coming from the left and the right hemifield, but it does not allow the conclusion that the discrimination was based upon spatial location of the stimulus. Another plausible alternative supposing that the infants discriminate at the level of sensory or proximal information, can not be ruled-out. If however an infants' response translates the place occupied by the stimulus in space, we must necessarily postulate that there has been decoding of proximal sensory input in terms of distal properties of the stimulus.
