232 Gitte Kristiansen
Table 2. Three-level response form distributed to test subjects
Area Community Province
north Galicia La Coruña / Lugo / Orense /
Pontevedra
centre Asturias Asturias
south Cantabria Cantabria
east Pais Vasco Álava / Guipúzcoa / Vizcaya
west Navarra Navarra
Aragón Huesca / Teruel / Zaragoza
Cataluña Barcelona / Gerona / Lérida /
Tarragona
La Rioja La Rioja
Castilla y León Ávila / Burgos / León / Palencia /
Salamanca / Segovia / Soria /
Valladolid / Zamora
Comunidad de Madrid Madrid
Extremadura Badajoz / Cáceres
Castilla la Mancha Albacete / Ciudad Real /
Cuenca / Guadalajara/ Toledo
Comunidad Valenciana Alicante / Castellón / Valencia
Andalucía Almería / Cádiz / Córdoba / Granada /
Huelva/ Jaén / Málaga / Sevilla
Murcia Murcia
Islas Baleares Islas Baleares
Islas Canarias Las Palmas / Santa Cruz de Tenerife
The widest possible level was as abstract as the cardinal points. Many of
the 6-7 year-olds (who undertook the task with much seriousness, proud to
be asked about their skills and to participate in an experiment), opted for
these general choices whenever they felt uncertain about more specific
possibilities. At the second level of specificity came the 17 Spanish auto-
nomous communities, and finally, at the most difficult level, the 51 prov-
inces that constitute the 17 communities. Needless to say, expectations for
this level were low for all three age groups, but predictions were still that a
gradual construal of emerging patterns even at such a refined level of ab-
straction would be reflected in the data.
The response form contained the following three questions for each of
the eight speakers: