So I was playing with Hannah and Sasha for a while earlier today - they would chase me around and try to catch me, then vice versa - and I noticed that when they were chasing me, they more or less followed my path. Note that this was in the lounge, so there were plenty of obstacles; and while of course I didn't go very fast (I did want them to be able to catch me, after all), I did go faster enough than them that it often would have been to their advantage to, for instance, go around a couch in the other direction and head me off. (Of course, really the thing to do would be to split up and get me from both sides, but obviously expecting kids their age to coordinate like that is a bit unreasonable.)
Still, I found it interesting that even individually, they didn't seem to actually think about how to catch me, they just followed my path. Does anyone know anything about when kids tend to figure out basic tactics of pursuit? I guess maybe it is unreasonable to expect that of 4-year olds, but I was still surprised. (Evasion, of course, is considerably harder, and I remember from experience has to be more explicitly figured out...)
Also, they didn't follow my path when I would, say, jump over a couch, but presumably this is some combination of their parents prohibiting them from doing so, and their not really being physically able to... once I realized they weren't being very smart in chasing me, I stopped doing that as mixing it up like that wasn't really necessary.
Also, for that matter, I might be wrong in stating that they were just following my path: Hannah appeared to be, but she's the faster one, so perhaps she was just always close enough behind that it made sense. Sasha is considerably slower, so it was pretty obvious that she was following my path - but maybe she was actually chasing after Hannah, rather than me? I don't think so, but it's not like I can know what she was thinking.
-Harry
Still, I found it interesting that even individually, they didn't seem to actually think about how to catch me, they just followed my path. Does anyone know anything about when kids tend to figure out basic tactics of pursuit? I guess maybe it is unreasonable to expect that of 4-year olds, but I was still surprised. (Evasion, of course, is considerably harder, and I remember from experience has to be more explicitly figured out...)
Also, they didn't follow my path when I would, say, jump over a couch, but presumably this is some combination of their parents prohibiting them from doing so, and their not really being physically able to... once I realized they weren't being very smart in chasing me, I stopped doing that as mixing it up like that wasn't really necessary.
Also, for that matter, I might be wrong in stating that they were just following my path: Hannah appeared to be, but she's the faster one, so perhaps she was just always close enough behind that it made sense. Sasha is considerably slower, so it was pretty obvious that she was following my path - but maybe she was actually chasing after Hannah, rather than me? I don't think so, but it's not like I can know what she was thinking.
-Harry
