ABSTRACT
The problem investigated in the next group of experiments is concerned mainly with the positions of objects relative to one another and to various observers and not simply with the changes in apparent shape of single objects. These are problems of the relations before-behind and left-right, that is, the ordering relations applying to two out of the three dimensions present in the perspectives here under consideration. The purpose is to trace the child’s developing awareness of his own viewpoint and its relation to others, as it is only when he is able to co-ordinate a number of viewpoints that the relations involved in elementary perspective are mastered. The apparatus used is a model of three mountains between 12 and 30 cm. high on a base 1 metre square (see Fig. 4). From this initial position, A, the child sees a green mountain, topped by a little house, occupying the right foreground, to the left a brown mountain, higher than the green one and slightly to its rear, topped by a red cross. In the background is the tallest and largest mountain, grey and snow-capped. From position C a zig-zag path can be seen running down the green mountain, while from position B a little rivulet is seen to descend the brown mountain.
