Young Children's Knowledge of the Representational Function of Pictorial Symbols: Development Across the Preschool Years in Three Cultures

Add to shortlist Download Citation Recommend to: A friend Information Full text References Reprints & permissions Threeto five-year-old children's knowledge that pictures have a representational function for others was investigated using a pictorial false belief task. In Study 1, children passed the task at around four years, and performance was correlated with standard false belief and pictorial symbol tasks. In Study 2, the performance of children from two cultural settings having very little exposure to pictures during the first three years (Peru, India) was contrasted with that of children from Canada. Performance was better in the Canadian than Peruvian and Indian samples on the picture false belief task and drawing tasks, but not on the standard false belief measure. In all settings children passed drawing and standard false belief tasks either concurrently with, or prior to, passing the picture false belief task. The findings suggest that children's explicit knowledge of the representational function of pictorial symbols matures in the late preschool years, developing more rapidly in cultures that Abstract Jump to section Link Taylor & Francis Online :: Young Children's Knowledge of the Representational Function of Pictorial Symbols: Development Across the Preschool Years in Three Cultures Journal of Cognition and Dev... http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15248372.2011.587853[5/2/2012 12:59:52 PM] strongly promote the symbolic use of pictures early in life. Infants are immersed in the symbolic systems of their cultures from an early age, in some symbolic domains as early as birth (e.g., infant-directed language). However, a fully mature understanding of the shared representational function of symbols may take some time to develop (Callaghan, ; Nelson, ; 2007; Rochat & Callaghan, ; Tomasello, ; ). Researchers from a range of theoretical perspectives have proposed a developmental shift from lesser to fuller symbolic functioning over the preschool years. The terminology may change, but the basic idea of a move toward reflective understanding of the representational process is similar across the domains of language (e.g., referential vs. representational knowledge Nelson, 2007; Nelson & Kessler-Shaw, ), pretense (e.g., situational to mentalistic interpretations of pretend Jarrold, Mansergh, & Whiting, ), thought (e.g., conscious or reflective awareness of the representational function Carlson & Zelazo, ; Zelazo, ), and communication in general (e.g., motive to share a communicative intention Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll, ). In the current studies, the development of an explicit understanding of the representational function of pictorial symbols was explored. To assess the role of cultural supports in the development of this representational knowledge, two cultural contexts that varied in the extent to which young children were exposed to pictorial symbols were included. Representational Understanding of Pictorial Symbols A developmental shift in understanding is evident in research with pictorial symbols, where vastly different age estimates of the onset of representational understanding of pictorial symbols are reported. Research using picture-supported word learning paradigms with novel objects estimates that representational understanding emerges by 15 months (Ganea, Allen, Butler, Carey & DeLoache, 2009; Ganea, Pickard & DeLoache, 2008; Preissler & Carey, ; Preissler & Bloom, ). Relatively early estimates of representational understanding are also found with imitation tasks. When an experimenter narrated the actions, 13-month-olds (Keates, ) and 18-month-olds (Simcock & DeLoache, ; Simcock & Dooley, ) imitated those actions from a series of color photographs. In contrast, research involving the use of pictorial symbols to search for depicted objects suggests that important components of representational understanding develop somewhat later. For example, knowledge that a picture is both a representation of something and an interesting object in its own right (i.e., dual representation) is not evident until around 30 months in search tasks (DeLoache, ; ; DeLoache & Burns, ; Preissler & Bloom, ). In addition to these task differences, two factors appear to influence the relative success of infants and young children across pictorial symbol tasks. The redundant use of language to label pictures and greater perceptual similarity between pictorial symbols and their referents both lower the age at which children pass the tasks (object search tasks: Callaghan, ; ; Callaghan & Rankin, ; Pierroutsakos & DeLoache, , word-learning and imitation tasks: Ganea et al., ; Simcock & DeLoache, ). In summary, pictorial symbol research suggests that appreciation of the representational relation between a picture and its referent may be dawning relatively early in life, particularly in situations where it is possible to bootstrap onto an existing (linguistic) symbol system, but representational understanding undergoes further development throughout childhood. Discrepancies in estimates of the age of onset of pictorial representational understanding, and a desire to formulate a developmental framework for this understanding, motivated the present studies. Clearly, discrepancies in estimating when infants attain representational insight could stem from differences in task demands. In particular, it is difficult to assess in most pictorial symbol tasks whether the infant or child possesses knowledge that pictures have a representational function or they are bootstrapping their performance with language or perceptual matching abilities. However, the discrepancies may also reflect differences in researchers’ conceptualizations of representational insight and understanding. Researchers need to identify precisely what children understand about pictorial symbols at various points along the developmental trajectory. Symbolic development ranges from an implicit, action-based understanding in early infancy (i.e., mimesis) to an explicit, conceptual understanding of representation in the late preschool years. Our primary aim in the current studies was to investigate development of the explicit understanding that pictorial symbols have a representational function. Based on the standard false belief task (Wimmer & Perner, 1983), designed to assess metaknowledge of beliefs as mental representations of reality (Perner, ), we developed the picture false belief task, designed to measure children's meta-knowledge (i.e., explicit understanding) of pictures as representations of reality. In the pictorial version of the task, children sorted two types of toys into two identical boxes with an experimenter (E1). E1 highlighted her favorite toys and then drew and posted a simple line drawing on each of the boxes to indicate their contents before leaving the room. When E1 was out of the room, a second experimenter (E2) asked children if they wanted to play a trick and then switched the pictures. Children passed the task when they correctly predicted that E1 would look in the (wrong) box that had the picture of her favorite toys on the front. To succeed on the picture false belief task, two processes must be invoked. Children must understand that they and others use pictures as representations (i.e., explicit knowledge of the shared representational function), and they must understand what the consequences will be when E1 holds a false belief (i.e., false belief understanding). Pictures and False Belief Understanding Standard verbal tests of false belief understanding employ either a change of contents (Smarties task, Perner, Leekham, & Wimmer, ) or a change of location (Maxi chocolate task, Wimmer & Perner, 1983) as a means of setting up the false belief scenario. In the Smarties task, children are shown the box depicting the contents on the label, but for which the contents have been deceptively switched, and are asked what they think is inside. Once they are shown the true contents of the box (e.g., pencils), children have to predict what another person will think is inside the box. Children typically pass this task between 4 and 5 years (see meta-analysis by Wellman, Cross, & Watson, ), but 3-year-olds pass the task when they are actively engaged in switching the contents (Sullivan & Winner, ), and when language terms more explicitly mark the timing referred to in the test question (e.g., ‘before I take the top off’, Lewis & Osborne, ). Without these supports, individual performance on the Smarties task typically lags behind that on a standard change of location (Sally-Anne) task (Krachun, Carpenter, Call, & Tomasello, ). 2008 2006 2005 1999 2008 2002 201