RESUMO
Two studies examined young children's comprehension and production of representational drawings across and within 2 socioeconomic strata (SES). Participants were 130 middle-SES (MSES) and low-SES (LSES) Argentine children, from 30 to 60 months old, given a task with 2 phases, production and comprehension. The production phase assessed free drawing and drawings from simple 3-dimensional objects (model drawing); the comprehension phase assessed children's understanding of an adult's line drawings of the objects. MSES children solved the comprehension phase of the task within the studied age range; representational production emerged first in model drawing (42 months) and later in free drawing (48 months). The same developmental pathway was observed in LSES children but with a clear asynchrony in the age of onset of comprehension and production: Children understood the symbolic nature of drawings at 42 months old and the first representational drawings were found at 60 months old. These results provide empirical evidence that support the crucial influence of social experiences by organizing and constraining graphic development.
Assuntos
Desenvolvimento Infantil , Compreensão , Classe Social , Argentina , Pré-Escolar , Pesquisa Empírica , Feminino , Humanos , MasculinoRESUMO
Desde temprano en sus vidas, los niños están expuestos a una variedad de representaciones figurativas en fotografías, libros, en la televisión y el video. Este artículo postula que a pesar de la similitud perceptual entre estas imágenes y sus referentes, su comprensión es un proceso complejo en el que participan mecanismos perceptuales, cognitivos y sociocognitivos. La primera parte del artículo revisa investigaciones que han identificado los principales hitos evolutivos en la comprensión de las representaciones figurativas y los mecanismos perceptuales y cognitivos que subyacen a este proceso. Este análisis permite proponer tres fases en este desarrollo (pre-simbólica, simbólica y post-simbólica) desde el nacimiento hasta el comienzo de los años escolares. La segunda parte examina la influencia en la comprensión de factores relacionados con el contexto social, específicamente la experiencia simbólica y la intención del creador y/o el usuario de una imagen. De esta manera, las habilidades para la cognición social y el aprendizaje cultural son también cruciales en el conocimiento y uso de representaciones figurativas.
From early in infancy, children are exposed to a wide variety of figurative representations; they read picture books and magazines with their parents and look at family photos and images on television and video. Figurative representations are a particular type of external representations. An external representation is "something that someone intends to stand for or represent something other than itself" (DeLoache, 1995, p. 109). Figurative representations are two-dimensional representations highly similar to their referents; however, this article develops the idea that even though this perceptual similarity, figurative representations are not transparent objects for very young children. Understanding the dual nature of pictures, that they are things in themselves and communicate meaning by referring to some other reality, is a lengthy and complex developmental process influenced and determined by perceptual, cognitive and social-cognitive mechanisms. The first part of the article reviews studies that have identified the major milestones in pictorial comprehension and discusses the perceptual (discrimination, categorization) and cognitive mechanisms (concept formation, analogical reasoning, representational strategies) underlying this process.This analysis allows us to propose three phases of development from birth to the beginning of the school period: (1) apre-symbolic phase, between 0 and 18 months of age, when infants mainly take a manipulative stance toward pictures; (2) a symbolic phase, between two and three years, when children comprehend and use the symbolic link between pictures and referents; and (3) a post-symbolic phase, after four years, when children understand that the contents of pictures remain stable despite any change made to the real objects they depict. The second part of the article examines the influence of social factors on pictorial comprehension, specifically symbolic experience and the intention of the creator and/or user of a picture. The supporting role of social factors in symbolic development has long been demonstrated in the domain of language (see Baldwin, 2000; Tomasello, 1999, 2003); in contrast, very little is known about the impact of social cognitive mechanisms (cultural learning, intentionality) in children's knowledge of pictures. DeLoache (1995, 2002) proposed that with age children gain experience with symbols and develop a general expectation or readiness to look for and detect symbolic relations among entities. However, this paper presents evidence that symbolic experience has a crucial social dimension; supportive contexts that highlight the relation between pictorial symbols and their referents in close social interactions facilitate children's comprehension of images (Callaghan & Rankin, 2002; Szechter & Liben, 2004). Cross-cultural and social differences in the age of onset of symbolic comprehension also support this hypothesis (Callaghan et al., 2011; Salsa, in press). Intention is both necessary and sufficient to establish a symbolic relation (Werner & Kaplan, 1963); understanding intentionality is especially important for interpreting symbols because their meaning is assigned by the symbol creator or user. There is abundant evidence that young infants (12 months) are sensitive to basic aspects of the intentions of adults who act on objects in the world, and that older infants (18-24 months) begin to discern the more subtle communicative intentions of adults found in the flow of actions found in social exchanges using language symbols (Tomasello, 2003). A few studies have explored whether children are sensitive to another person's intention to represent when they name drawings or use photographs in a search task (Bloom & Markson, 1998; Gelman & Ebeling, 1998; Preissler & Bloom, 2008; Salsa & Peralta, 2007). Nevertheless, these studies show that children's ability to read intentions is another privileged route towards symbolic understanding.
RESUMO
Desde temprano en sus vidas, los niños están expuestos a una variedad de representaciones figurativas en fotografías, libros, en la televisión y el video. Este artículo postula que a pesar de la similitud perceptual entre estas imágenes y sus referentes, su comprensión es un proceso complejo en el que participan mecanismos perceptuales, cognitivos y sociocognitivos. La primera parte del artículo revisa investigaciones que han identificado los principales hitos evolutivos en la comprensión de las representaciones figurativas y los mecanismos perceptuales y cognitivos que subyacen a este proceso. Este análisis permite proponer tres fases en este desarrollo (pre-simbólica, simbólica y post-simbólica) desde el nacimiento hasta el comienzo de los años escolares. La segunda parte examina la influencia en la comprensión de factores relacionados con el contexto social, específicamente la experiencia simbólica y la intención del creador y/o el usuario de una imagen. De esta manera, las habilidades para la cognición social y el aprendizaje cultural son también cruciales en el conocimiento y uso de representaciones figurativas.(AU)
From early in infancy, children are exposed to a wide variety of figurative representations; they read picture books and magazines with their parents and look at family photos and images on television and video. Figurative representations are a particular type of external representations. An external representation is "something that someone intends to stand for or represent something other than itself" (DeLoache, 1995, p. 109). Figurative representations are two-dimensional representations highly similar to their referents; however, this article develops the idea that even though this perceptual similarity, figurative representations are not transparent objects for very young children. Understanding the dual nature of pictures, that they are things in themselves and communicate meaning by referring to some other reality, is a lengthy and complex developmental process influenced and determined by perceptual, cognitive and social-cognitive mechanisms. The first part of the article reviews studies that have identified the major milestones in pictorial comprehension and discusses the perceptual (discrimination, categorization) and cognitive mechanisms (concept formation, analogical reasoning, representational strategies) underlying this process.This analysis allows us to propose three phases of development from birth to the beginning of the school period: (1) apre-symbolic phase, between 0 and 18 months of age, when infants mainly take a manipulative stance toward pictures; (2) a symbolic phase, between two and three years, when children comprehend and use the symbolic link between pictures and referents; and (3) a post-symbolic phase, after four years, when children understand that the contents of pictures remain stable despite any change made to the real objects they depict. The second part of the article examines the influence of social factors on pictorial comprehension, specifically symbolic experience and the intention of the creator and/or user of a picture. The supporting role of social factors in symbolic development has long been demonstrated in the domain of language (see Baldwin, 2000; Tomasello, 1999, 2003); in contrast, very little is known about the impact of social cognitive mechanisms (cultural learning, intentionality) in childrens knowledge of pictures. DeLoache (1995, 2002) proposed that with age children gain experience with symbols and develop a general expectation or readiness to look for and detect symbolic relations among entities. However, this paper presents evidence that symbolic experience has a crucial social dimension; supportive contexts that highlight the relation between pictorial symbols and their referents in close social interactions facilitate childrens comprehension of images (Callaghan & Rankin, 2002; Szechter & Liben, 2004). Cross-cultural and social differences in the age of onset of symbolic comprehension also support this hypothesis (Callaghan et al., 2011; Salsa, in press). Intention is both necessary and sufficient to establish a symbolic relation (Werner & Kaplan, 1963); understanding intentionality is especially important for interpreting symbols because their meaning is assigned by the symbol creator or user. There is abundant evidence that young infants (12 months) are sensitive to basic aspects of the intentions of adults who act on objects in the world, and that older infants (18-24 months) begin to discern the more subtle communicative intentions of adults found in the flow of actions found in social exchanges using language symbols (Tomasello, 2003). A few studies have explored whether children are sensitive to another persons intention to represent when they name drawings or use photographs in a search task (Bloom & Markson, 1998; Gelman & Ebeling, 1998; Preissler & Bloom, 2008; Salsa & Peralta, 2007). Nevertheless, these studies show that childrens ability to read intentions is another privileged route towards symbolic understanding.(AU)