Understanding children's art: an analysis of the literature

This article attempts to answer the question: "Why is it that an intuitively obvious means of understanding children has not been documented as such?". This is done through a critical analysis of the literature dealing with the validity of the Draw-A-Person Test (DAP). Studies reviewed are analyzed along three parameters; projective test theory, subject population, and psychodiagnostic labeling. On the basis of this analysis, explanations for inconsistencies in the results of the research and suggestions for organizing future work in this area are submitted.     

Portrayal of body weight on children's television sitcoms: a content analysis

Television programs portray characters with idealized body types that for most viewers are unattainable. These body types have become a common source of comparison for many young viewers who evaluate their own self-worth and bodies based on the models they see on television. This study examines body weight, both in terms of frequency and portrayals, focusing on how preadolescent and adolescent characters’ bodies are presented on the sitcoms from three children's television networks. The results indicate that while children's situation comedies have relatively few overweight characters, this small percentage closely parallels national figures. Male and female characters do not differ in their distribution across weight categories. However, when character ethnicity is factored, significant shifts occur. Surprisingly, no differences were observed in the portrayal of physical and mental attributes among weight categories except in social popularity where overweight characters were not as embedded in social networks. Compared to other relevant studies, this research provides some evidence that the treatment and portrayal of overweight characters in children-targeted sitcoms is more positive, equitable, and less stereotypical than in other programming venues and that children are experiencing body type diversity in these fictional portrayals. Nonetheless, above average weight characters still suffer some social marginality and ethnic misrepresentation.     

Picture versus question elaboration on young children's learning of sentences containing high- and low-probability content

The main purpose of the two experiments reported here was to compare the potency of two types of elaboration on children's learning of sentence content: The effects of partial picture adjuncts were compared to the effects produced by answering "why"-questions about the relationships specified in the sentences. Five- to seven-year-old children heard sentences of the form, subject/verb/direct object/preposition/instrument. Sentences contained either a high-probability or a low-probability instrument given the semantic context. In Experiment 1, sentences either were accompanied by a partial picture depicting the sentence action but omitting the instrument or were presented without a partial picture accompaniment. Recall was improved by provision of partial pictures at study. In Experiment 2, the sentences were accompanied by complete pictures depicting the sentence content. In both experiments, questioning significantly reduced recall of high-probability sentences, with recall of instruments affected especially negatively. Evidence is presented that insufficient attention to instruments may have been one mechanism mediating depressed recall of high- compared to low-probability instruments in the questioned conditions. In summary, partial pictures improved cued recall of sentences in this study; in contrast, all significant effects produced by answering why-questions were negative ones (i.e., later recall was reduced following interrogation at study).     

Six-year-old children's understanding of sentences adjoined with time adverbs

The adjoining of clauses with temporal links is the basis for many sentences that convey sequence of events. The present study attempts to delineate 6-year-old children's (N=30) understanding of the meaning sequences imparted by sentences adjoined with after, before, and until. Their performance of the meaning sequence for each of 24 carefully constructed sentences is compared to an adult model. Analysis of the results (using a Wilcoxon Matched Pairs Signed Rank Test) indicated that: (1)Ss understood sentences adjoined with after according to an adult model more frequently than before adjoined sentences (P<0.01); (b) Until adjoined sentences with a negative marker in the main clause were understood according to an adult model more often than until adjoined sentences with no such negative element, but the difference was not significant at a=0.01; (3)Ss understood before adjoined sentences according to an adult model more often than until adjoined sentences, but the difference was not significant at a=0.01. In general, the results indicated that 6-year-olds have not yet completed development of an adult grammar with respect to adjoining clauses with temporal links, after, before, and until.     

Functional structure in sentences: A performance analysis

Two experiments are reported which attempt to define the groupings of component words within sentences which subjects have committed to memory. The structural groupings are indexed by judgement latencies for pairs of words and these serve as the input matrix for a hierarchical clustering (HC) analysis. It is concluded that when subjects make judgements concerning the forward order of pairs of words, the latencies imply the presence of a hierarchical organization. Although the tree structures obtained do not follow in any detail the surface structures of the sentence types in either experiment, nonetheless when constituent analysis indicates no difference it is accompanied by identical performance structures, and when a surface distinction is called for, an appropriate difference is found in the tree diagrams produced by cluster analysis. Deep structure differences involving the rearrangement of component words are not found in the hierarchical structure subjects imposed. The pausing patterns followed by subjects when reading the sentences are shown to relate to the structural diagrams generated by the HC analysis.     

Plausibility and subcategorization preference in children's processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences: Evidence from self-paced reading

Three self-paced reading experiments investigated children's processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences. Across the three experiments, subcategorization preference of a verb in a subordinate clause and the semantic plausibility of the misanalysis were manipulated. Reading times in the temporarily ambiguous region and following syntactic disambiguation indicated that children in the age range tested (8 years, 11 months to 12 years, 11 months) routinely misanalyse sentences of the type tested, and their tendency to misanalyse the sentences does not depend on the subcategorization preferences of the initial verb. Additional correlational analyses suggested that subcategory information did affect the degree of difficulty that readers experienced processing the critical noun and matrix verb.     

Gender role stereotyping in children's literature: An update

The impact of gender role stereotyping in children's literature has been examined in numerous studies over the past two decades. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the sex bias portrayed in picture books is still as prevalent as in the past. In particular, we were interested in whether the frequency of males and females in pictures and their characterizations had changed. One hundred and fifty children's picture books were analyzed for gender role content. It was found that while the frequency of males and females depicted in the stories had indeed become more evenly distributed over the past 50 years, the roles played by males and females have changed in a more subtle way. Girls are now being pictured in more instrumental activities, but are as passive dependent as 50 years ago. Boys are occasionally shown as passive dependent today, but are no less instrumental than 50 years ago. The findings suggest that increased effort is needed on the part of publishers and authors to provide children with literature that more closely parallels the roles of males and females in contemporary society.Preparation of this article was supported in part by a Faculty Grant from Monmouth College awarded to the second author.     

Gender and survival vs. death in slasher films: A content analysis

The content of slasher films was examined, focusing on what portion of the violence is directed toward and committed by women vs. men and the survival rates, the juxtaposition of sex and violence for male and female victims, and differences between male and female survivors vs. nonsurvivors. Five student coders analyzed 56 slasher films (474 victims). Female and male victims were portrayed equally frequently in these films. Male characters were as likely to die as female characters as a result of the attack; however, more female than male characters survived the attacks. The slashers were primarily men. Sexiness was paired with nonsurvival of female victims, whereas male nonsurvivors were portrayed as possessing negative masculine traits. The reinforcement of the good vs. bad woman dichotomy and the portrayed cost of unmitigated extreme masculinity in men in slasher films are discussed.The authors wish to thank four coders — June Cline, Susan Malinowski, Camille Mayers, and Misty Sherman — for their work in coding the slasher films.     

The semantics of secrecy: young children's classification of secret content

The authors explored whether young children can distinguish potential secrets from nonsecrets by their content, as can older children, adolescents, and adults. Ninety children, 4, 5, and 6 years old, rated the secrecy of items from an adult-validated list of personal information about an age- and gender-appropriate puppet. Two factors of the children's data corresponded to the adult categories of nonsecrets and secrets, and a third factor corresponded to surprises. All ages rated surprises as significantly more secret than nonsecret items; however, the surprise items contained linguistic cues to secrecy. A tendency to rate nonsecrets as secret decreased with age, but only the 6-year-olds rated secrets other than surprises as significantly more secret than nonsecrets. Thus, children acquire the implicit rules defining secret content from a somewhat later age than that reported for the cognitive or behavioral capacities for secrecy.     

The endurance of children's working memory: a recall time analysis

We analyze the timing of recall as a source of information about children’s performance in complex working memory tasks. A group of 8-year-olds performed a traditional operation span task in which sequence length increased across trials and an operation period task in which processing requirements were extended across trials of constant sequence length. Interword pauses were longer than are commonly found in immediate serial recall tasks yet shorter than for reading span. These pauses increased with the demands of recall, decreased across the output sequence, and were to some extent predictive of scholastic ability. Overall, timing data illustrate that recall in working memory tasks involves subtle processes of item access rather than simple readout of information from an immediate store.     

Bias in sentencing: A preliminary analysis of community service sentences

Debate regarding judicial bias in sentencing remains intense despite numerous studies on the subject. Recent research has emphasized the roles of judicial discretion and the cumulative effect of bias in the criminal justice system. This article employs preliminary data from community service sentencing to explore ethnic and gender biases for a sample of defendants. It is argued that these data have unique advantages for disentangling the effect of bias from other items, including prior record, seriousness of offense, and initial plea. The data reveal both ethnic and gender biases in sentencing under circumstances where judges have discretion, but no biases where discretion is limited.     

British and Pakistani children's understanding of death: Cultural and developmental influences

This study explored British and Pakistani 4‐ to 7‐year‐olds’ (N = 188) understanding of death. The aim was to examine possible influences on the acquisition of the subcomponents of the death concept by investigating how they are understood by children of different ages and cultural and religious backgrounds. Three groups of children were compared: White British and British Muslim living in London, and Pakistani Muslim living in rural Pakistan. In line with previous research (Slaughter, 2005, Aust. Psychol., 40(3), 179), irreversibility of death was one of the first subcomponents to be acquired, while causality was the last. The two groups of British children shared many similarities in their understanding of inevitability, applicability, irreversibility, and cessation. Pakistani Muslim children understood irreversibility earlier than did children in both British groups. In all three cultural groups, children's responses demonstrated very limited understanding of causality. Our findings support the view that aspects of a mature understanding of death develop between the ages of 4 and 7 years and that the process of understanding death as a biological event is, to a great extent, universal. They also suggest that aspects of children's reasoning are influenced by culturally specific experiences, particularly those arising from living in rural versus urban settings.     

Fat stigmatization on YouTube: a content analysis

YouTube.com is an internet website that is viewed by two billion individuals daily, and thus may serve as the source of images and messages regarding weight acceptance or weight bias. In the current study, a targeted sample of YouTube videos that displayed fat stigmatization were content rated on a variety of video characteristics. The findings revealed that men were the target of fat stigmatization (62.1%) almost twice as often as women (36.4%). When there was an antagonist present in the video, the great majority of the time, the aggressor was male (88.5%) rather than female (7.7%). These findings indicate that men were the antagonist 11.5 times the rate of women, but they were only 1.7 times more often stigmatized. Future research avenues, including an experimental analysis of viewing stigmatizing videos on body image, are recommended.     

Death row inmate characteristics, adjustment, and confinement: a critical review of the literature

This article reviews and summarizes research on death row inmates. The contributions and weaknesses of death row demographic data, clinical studies, and research based on institutional records are critiqued. Our analysis shows that death row inmates are overwhelmingly male and disproportionately Southern. Racial representation remains controversial. Frequently death row inmates are intellectually limited and academically deficient. Histories of significant neurological insult are common, as are developmental histories of trauma, family disruption, and substance abuse. Rates of psychological disorder among death row inmates are high, with conditions of confinement appearing to precipitate or aggravate these disorders. Contrary to expectation, the extant research indicates that the majority of death row inmates do not exhibit violence in prison even in more open institutional settings. These findings have implications for forensic mental health sentencing evaluations, competent attorney representation, provision of mental health services, racial disparity in death sentences, death row security and confinement policies, and moral culpability considerations. Future research directions on death row populations are suggested.     

Visual pattern perception: a multidimensional analysis of development of children's reading skills

This study was designed to assess the extent to which there are visual pattern processing deficits which are related to differential reading skill of young children. Discrimination problems were constructed using visual patterns with features known to be processed differentially by the central nervous system based upon neurophysiological data. Analysis of variance and multidimensional scaling techniques were used to analyze the discrimination latencies of kindergarten through third grade children (12 per grade) who were classified either as good or poor readers. The results show that there are no pattern-specific effects which discriminate good from poor readers. Rather, good readers process all patterns more efficiently than do poor readers, and efficiency improves with age for all readers studied. This suggests that the locus of the reading deficit occurs at levels in the nervous system beyond where pattern-feature processing occurs.     

The interpretation of classically quantified sentences: a set-theoretic approach

We present a set-theoretic model of the mental representation of classically quantified sentences (All P are Q, Some P are Q, Some P are not Q, and No P are Q). We take inclusion, exclusion, and their negations to be primitive concepts. We show that although these sentences are known to have a diagrammatic expression (in the form of the Gergonne circles) that constitutes a semantic representation, these concepts can also be expressed syntactically in the form of algebraic formulas. We hypothesized that the quantified sentences have an abstract underlying representation common to the formulas and their associated sets of diagrams (models). We derived 9 predictions (3 semantic, 2 pragmatic, and 4 mixed) regarding people's assessment of how well each of the 5 diagrams expresses the meaning of each of the quantified sentences. We report the results from 3 experiments using Gergonne's (1817) circles or an adaptation of Leibniz (1903/1988) lines as external representations and show them to support the predictions.     

Meinwald's pros heauto analysis of Plato's apparently self-predicational sentences

Book Information Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion. By David Ray Griffin. Cornell University Press. Ithaca. 2001. Pp. viii + 426. Hardback, US$55.00. Paperback, US$24.95.