Core geometry in perspective

Research on animals, infants, children, and adults provides evidence that distinct cognitive systems underlie navigation and object recognition. Here we examine whether and how these systems interact when children interpret 2D edge‐based perspectival line drawings of scenes and objects. Such drawings serve as symbols early in development, and they preserve scene and object geometry from canonical points of view. Young children show limits when using geometry both in non‐symbolic tasks and in symbolic map tasks that present 3D contexts from unusual, unfamiliar points of view. When presented with the familiar viewpoints in perspectival line drawings, however, do children engage more integrated geometric representations? In three experiments, children successfully interpreted line drawings with respect to their depicted scene or object. Nevertheless, children recruited distinct processes when navigating based on the information in these drawings, and these processes depended on the context in which the drawings were presented. These results suggest that children are flexible but limited in using geometric information to form integrated representations of scenes and objects, even when interpreting spatial symbols that are highly familiar and faithful renditions of the visual world.     

Contribution of the visual perception and graphic production systems to the copying of complex geometrical drawings: A developmental study

The aim of this study was to determine the contribution of the visual perception and graphic production systems [Van Sommers, P. (1989). A system for drawing and drawing-related neuropsychology. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 6, 117–164] to the manifestation of the “Centripetal Execution Principle” (CEP), a graphic rule for the copying of drawings consisting of embedded simple geometric shapes from the outside shape to the inside shape. Children aged 4–8 years copied two types of model that differed in the visual salience of one of the simple geometric shapes (drawn in bold or normal weight lines), producing the drawings either by graphic execution (freehand) or by superimposing the simple geometric shapes. The results indicated that the frequency of CEP depended both on the type of model and on the drawing context in the youngest children. They suggest that the CEP is determined by the structure of the representation of the models and the planning of the execution of the drawings. The developmental differences in the effects of visual salience and execution context are discussed in the light of the development of representational flexibility and planning abilities. These data are consistent with a dissociation between the visual perception and graphic production systems and account for their interaction.     

Recognition of Line-Drawing Representations by a Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)

The ability of a chimpanzee to recognize individuals portrayed in line drawings was evaluated. A 12-year-old female chimpanzee with extensive prior experience in the use of visual symbols matched the line drawings of chimpanzees, humans, and an orangutan with a specific letter of the alphabet. When a line drawing of a familiar individual was presented on the computer screen, the chimpanzee responded by punching a key with the letter of the alphabet that corresponded to the individual's name. Results indicate that the chimpanzee is able to categorize individuals from novel line-drawing representations.     

Young Children's Self-Generated Object Views and Object Recognition

Two important and related developments in children between 18 and 24 months of age are the rapid expansion of object name vocabularies and the emergence of an ability to recognize objects from sparse representations of their geometric shapes. In the same period, children also begin to show a preference for planar views (i.e., views of objects held perpendicular to the line of sight) of objects they manually explore. Are children's emerging view preferences somehow related to contemporary changes in object name vocabulary and object perception? Children aged 18 to 24 months old explored richly detailed toy objects while wearing a head camera that recorded their object views. Both children's vocabulary size and their success in recognizing sparse three-dimensional representations of the geometric shapes of objects were significantly related to their spontaneous choice of planar views of those objects during exploration. The results suggest important interdependencies among developmental changes in perception, action, word learning, and categorization in very young children.     

Developmental Changes in Early Comprehension and Production of Drawings: Evidence From Two Socioeconomic Backgrounds

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.     

Developmental changes in visual object recognition between 18 and 24 months of age

Two experiments examined developmental changes in children's visual recognition of common objects during the period of 18 to 24 months. Experiment 1 examined children's ability to recognize common category instances that presented three different kinds of information: (1) richly detailed and prototypical instances that presented both local and global shape information, color, textural and featural information, (2) the same rich and prototypical shapes but no color, texture or surface featural information, or (3) that presented only abstract and global representations of object shape in terms of geometric volumes. Significant developmental differences were observed only for the abstract shape representations in terms of geometric volumes, the kind of shape representation that has been hypothesized to underlie mature object recognition. Further, these differences were strongly linked in individual children to the number of object names in their productive vocabulary. Experiment 2 replicated these results and showed further that the less advanced children's object recognition was based on the piecemeal use of individual features and parts, rather than overall shape. The results provide further evidence for significant and rapid developmental changes in object recognition during the same period children first learn object names. The implications of the results for theories of visual object recognition, the relation of object recognition to category learning, and underlying developmental processes are discussed.     

Representational drawings of solid objects by young children

Two groups of children aged 6 and 8 years were given three tasks requiring graphical representations of solid geometric forms. These tasks were drawing from life models, copying from photographs, and copying from line drawings of these objects. Performance was assessed on the basis of level of approximation to correct perspective. Older children used more perspective features than younger children in their drawings. At all ages, the drawings from life were most difficult. Results on the two copying tasks were not consistent. Drawings made by copying photographs were either as advanced as or poorer than copies of line drawings. The results are explained in terms of the difficulties exhibited by young children in translating the three-dimensional scene to a two-dimensional picture plane and strategies adopted by them to cope with these problems.     

Adults' representations of the Earth: Implications for children's acquisition of scientific concepts

When children are asked to draw the Earth they often produce intriguing pictures in which, for example, people seem to be standing on a flat disc or inside a hollow sphere. These drawings, and children's answers to questions, have been interpreted as indicating that children construct naïve, theory‐like mental models of the Earth (e.g. Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992 ). However, recent studies using different methods have found little or no evidence of these mental models, and report that many young children have some scientific knowledge of the Earth. To examine the reasons for these contrasting findings, adults (N = 350) were given the drawing task previously given to 5‐year‐old children. Fewer than half of the adults' pictures were scientific, and 15% were identical to children's ‘naïve’ drawings. Up to half of the answers to questions (e.g. ‘Where do people live?’) were non‐scientific. Open‐ended questions and follow‐up interviews revealed that non‐scientific responses were given because adults found the apparently simple task confusing and challenging. Since children very probably find it even more difficult, these findings indicate that children's non‐scientific responses, like adults', often result from methodological problems with the task. These results therefore explain the discrepant findings of previous research, and support the studies which indicate that children do not have naïve mental models of the Earth.     

Normal and unusual aspects of juvenile artistic development in Klee,Lautrec, and Picasso

This article integrates material from the biographies of three world‐class artists and material from current social‐science research on the development of creative individuals. The author examined the juvenile drawings of Klee, Lautrec, and Picasso. In this article he describes the ways in which these children's drawings are both “unusual”; and ordinary. Reproductions of drawings are included with the text in order to illustrate and support the observations about the development and quality of the three children's work. The concluding section of this article uses Csiks‐zentmihaly's systems approach to giftedness and proposes that more research is needed to examine the drawing development of children from a variety of cultures and backgrounds. Children to be included in such an investigation range from autistic child artists to children from nonwestern cultures in which the visual arts are singled out for support. In developing a broad collection of case studies, such as the ones proposed, the significant characteristics of the visually gifted child may emerge in sharper focus.     

Developmental picture norms: Relationships between name agreement,familiarity, and visual complexity for child and adult ratings of two sets of line drawings

Developmental differences in name agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity in response to line drawings of common objects were obtained from children and adults. Sixty-one pictures were taken from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised and 259 pictures were taken from the set normed for adults by Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980). Although there were some differences between the two sets of pictures, the present results replicated the relative independence of these three measures, which was reported by Snodgrass and Vanderwart for adults. Children and adults showed substantial agreement on the names of the pictures. Although the children’s ratings were lower on all measures, the differences were trivial for most pictures. We concluded that judgments of familiarity, complexity, and the names of line drawings of common objects are based primarily on information processing accomplished prior to age 7.     

On the relationship between children's perspective taking in complex scenes and their spatial drawing ability

Depicting space and volume in drawings is challenging for young children in particular. It has been assumed that several cognitive skills may contribute to children's drawing. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between perspective‐taking skills in complex scenes and the spatial characteristics in drawings of 5‐ to 9‐year‐olds (N= 121). Perspective taking was assessed by two tasks: (a) a visual task similar to the three‐mountains task, in which the children had to select a three‐dimensional model that showed the view on a scene from particular perspective and (b) a spatial construction task, in which children had to plastically reconstruct a three‐dimensional scene as it would appear from a new point of view. In the drawing task, the children were asked to depict a three‐dimensional scene exactly as it looked like from their own point of view. Several spatial features in the drawings were coded. The results suggested that children's spatial drawing and their perspective‐taking skills were related. The axes system and the spatial relations between objects in the drawings in particular were predicted, beyond age, by certain measures of the two perspective‐taking tasks. The results are discussed in the light of particular demands that might underlay both perspective taking and spatial drawing.     

Imitation,Inspiration, and Creation: Cognitive Process of Creative Drawing by Copying Others' Artworks

To investigate the cognitive processes underlying creative inspiration, we tested the extent to which viewing or copying prior examples impacted creative output in art. In Experiment 1, undergraduates made drawings under three conditions: (a) copying an artist's drawing, then producing an original drawing; (b) producing an original drawing without having seen another's work; and (c) copying another artist's work, then reproducing that artist's style independently. We discovered that through copying unfamiliar abstract drawings, participants were able to produce creative drawings qualitatively different from the model drawings. Process analyses suggested that participants' cognitive constraints became relaxed, and new perspectives were formed from copying another's artwork. Experiment 2 showed that exposure to styles of artwork considered unfamiliar facilitated creativity in drawing, while styles considered familiar did not do so. Experiment 3 showed that both copying and thoroughly viewing artwork executed using an unfamiliar style facilitated creativity in drawing, whereas merely thinking about alternative styles of artistic representation did not do so. These experiments revealed that deep encounters with unfamiliar artworks—whether through copying or prolonged observation—change people's cognitive representations of the act of drawing to produce novel artwork.     

Age-related changes in children's use of external representations.

This study explored children's use of external representations. Experiment 1 focused on representations of self: Self-recognition was assessed by a mark test as a function of age (3 vs. 4 years), delay (5 s vs. 3 min), and media (photographs vs. drawings). Four-year-olds outperformed 3-year-olds; children performed better with photographs than drawings; and there was no effect of delay. In Experiment 2, 3- and 4-year-olds used a delayed video image to locate a sticker on themselves (self task) or a stuffed animal (other task). The 2 tasks were positively correlated with age and vocabulary partialed out. Experiment 3 used a search task to assess whether children have particular difficulty using external representations that conflict with their expectations: 3- and 4-year-olds were informed of an object's location verbally or through video: on half of the trials, this information conflicted with children's initial belief. Three-year-olds performed worse than 4-year-olds on conflict trials, indicating that assessments of self and other understanding may reflect children's ability to reason about conflicting external representations.     

Le transfert intermodal des objets solides à leurs représentations graphiques chez les enfants : les capacités intermodales s’améliorent-elles avec l’âge ?

Children aged of four to six years participated in two cross-modal transfer tasks. (1) They were tactually familiarized with solid objects and then tested for visual recognition memory with outline drawings of them; (2) they were visually familiarized with drawings of objects and then tested for tactually recognition of solid objects. Six simple geometric shapes were presented to the children and could be named by them. Because a preliminary V-V transfer task was totally mastered by three to four year-old children, the children of this experiment were only subjected to an additional T-T transfer task with solid objects. This task permitted the investigation, in the course of development, of their ability to haptically recognize the correct familiar shape without seeing it. Correct recognitions were recorded. They increase similarly from four to five years in the three tasks. However, V-T cross-modal transfer was really mastered between five and six-years. These results are discussed in relation to the development of sensory modes and educational factors such as the learning of writing and reading in nursery school.     

The Role of Cognitive Flexibility in the Spatial Representation of Children's Drawings

Representing the spatial appearance of objects and scenes in drawings is a difficult task for young children in particular. In the present study, the relationship between spatial drawing and cognitive flexibility was investigated. Seven- to 11-year-olds (N = 60) were asked to copy a three-dimensional model in a drawing. The use of depth cues as an indicator of spatial drawing was examined. Furthermore, cognitive flexibility was assessed by three measures: the Wisconsin Card-Sorting Test 64 (reactive flexibility), the Five-Point Test (spontaneous flexibility), and omission/inclusion (representational flexibility). The results revealed significant relationships between all measures of flexibility and the depth cues in children's drawings. However, only spontaneous and representational flexibility turned out to be significant predictors of the spatial drawing score. The results are discussed in light of the specific requirements of spatial representations in drawings.     

Theory of Mind in Children's Naming of Drawings

Research suggests that children engage in mentalistic reasoning in their identification of drawings and other artifacts. To explore this phenomenon further, in 2 studies 4-year-olds, 7-year-olds, and adults chose names for drawings based on either the artist's intention, the drawing's resemblance to an object, or (in Study 1) a causal relation between the drawing and an object. When intention was directly pitted against resemblance or causality, participants generally chose resemblance-based or causality-based names, but when resemblance was ambiguous, participants tended to choose intention-based names. Thus, although intention was used to identify drawings when the drawings were ambiguous, participants seemed to reject a purported intention when it directly conflicted with resemblance. In addition, for older participants, the artist's knowledge of the intended referent affected the extent to which they took intention into account.     

Perceptual impulsions and unfamiliar solids: Evidence from a drawing task

Previous work (Dziurawiec & Derȩgowski, 1992) has shown that children's distorted drawings of animal models may be explained by the child's tendency to depict typical contours, the outlines of the surfaces which undergo pronounced change. The present paper investigates whether the typical contours notion can be extended to purely geometric solids. Results from a drawing task by children aged nine and eleven years, using unfamiliar models of varying complexity, indicate that the tendency to draw in perspective increases with the increase in figure complexity for both age groups, but younger children show a greater reliance on typical contours than older children. Recasting the data from previous drawing experiments (Bartel, 1928/1958; Cox, 1986) further confirms the utility of the typical contours approach. Finally, the advantages of such an approach over that of canonicity (cf. Palmer, Rosch & Chase, 1981) for the representation of solids are elaborated.     

Prior visual inspection and object naming: Two factors that enhance hidden feature inclusion in young children's drawings

It is widely held that young children draw what they know rather than what they see. However, evidence is growing that they can be provoked into making visually realistic drawings. In this study two factors were found to affect the form of visual realism. In Expt 1, 5- and 6-year-olds produced visually realistic drawings of a familiar object when it was neither named nor given to the child to inspect before drawing. On the other hand, prior inspection led to significant hidden feature inclusion at 5 and 6 years, and this applied whether the object drawn was familiar or novel. Seven-year-olds' drawings were visually realistic in all presentation conditions. In Expt 2, 6-year-olds were shown to include the hidden feature if the object was named before drawing. Two conclusions are drawn. It is possible that children draw what they have seen over time rather than what they see at a particular time. Secondly, object naming may lead to drawing from a canonical model tagged by the object's name.     

The impact of object type on the spatial analogies in Korean preschoolers

We tested young children’s spatial reasoning in a match-to-sample task, manipulating the objects in the task (abstract geometric shapes, line drawings of realistic objects, or both). Korean 4- and 5-year-old children (N = 161) generalized the target spatial configuration (i.e., on, in, above) more easily when the sample used geometric shapes and the choices used realistic objects than the reverse (i.e., realistic-object sample to geometric-shape choices). With within-type stimuli (i.e., sample and choices were both geometric shapes or both realistic objects), 5-year-old, but not 4-year-old, children generalized the spatial relations more easily with geometric shapes than realistic objects. In addition, children who knew more locative terms (e.g., “in”, “on”) performed better on the task, suggesting a link to children’s spatial vocabulary. The results demonstrate an advantage of geometric shapes over realistic objects in facilitating young children’s performance on a match-to-sample spatial reasoning task.